


Ginny tells it like it is

by redheadgirl



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Ginny injuried, OC, Padres bonding time, Pitch fanfic, first ever fanfic, post Season 1 finale, pretty fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 73,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9850547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redheadgirl/pseuds/redheadgirl
Summary: A lot has changed in the last 48 hours and more changes are coming. Ginny learns what her injury is and her chances of playing baseball again. She also learns that maybe she can trust her team, just a little, to help her through the tough times. And the Padres learn that Ginny Baker can be painfully blunt when she chooses.





	1. Ginny has some explaining to do

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fanfic ever. Comments are good, so at least I know someone read the story, but remember it's my first fanfic, so please be nice. Kudos are welcome if you feel it's deserved.

A banging on the door jolted her out of sleep. Who the hell was pounding on her door at…she rolled over to squint at the alarm clock by her bed…7:00 in the morning? She slumped back onto the bed and pulled a pillow over her head. The hotel had supplied her with excellent pillows and it went a long way towards muffling the sound from her door. She sighed with relief when the noise stopped. 

“Baker,” a voice barked sharply.

Ginny sat up with a scream, clutching at her arm to control the pain from the sudden movement. Her hair was in her face and prevented her from seeing who was in her room but she knew that voice. 

“Lawson?” Batting her curls out of her eyes, Ginny found Mike leaning his shoulder against her bedroom door smirking at her. “What the...” she choked out, her mouth gaping.

“You see Rookie, there are rules. Rules that say you have to answer your phone when your captain calls. Rules that say you can’t ignore your teammates’ calls and texts for an entire road trip.” Lawson straightened and crossed his arms over his chest, his smirk disappearing beneath the look she privately called his “obey me” look. “And there are many, many rules about how you can’t leave your teammates in the dark about something important like an injury because then they have to learn about it from ESPN.”

Ginny bit the corner of her lip and looked down. “It’s only been 48 hours, Lawson. And there really hasn’t been an official diagnosis yet, despite what ESPN has reported,” she muttered.

“So why didn’t you just say so? You could have told Evelyn, Blip, me, Salvi or anyone else. Even Livan. Wait. No, not Livan. Anyone but him. Instead you told us exactly nothing, which is why I’m standing here at 7:00 in the morning when I could have slept another two hours before heading to the park.”

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. How exactly did you get in my room?”

Mike pulled a plastic card from his pocket. “Room key.”

“How did you get that?”

Mike shrugged. “I have my ways.”

She pushed the covers back and stood to face him. “Who gave you a key to my room?”

“Rookie, no one gave me a key.” He took a quick step back when she reached out to grab the key from his hand. He made a point to scan her from top to bottom. “You know Baker, this isn’t what I pictured you wearing to bed.”

Ginny gasped in fake outrage as she made another swipe for the card key. “Why have you been imagining me in bed, old man?”

That took Mike aback and he froze. “I wasn’t…I mean I hadn’t…” he sputtered. She made a quick swipe for the key while he was distracted. She yanked it from his hand and quickly back-peddled, holding it behind her back so he couldn’t retrieve it. 

“Nice distraction,” Mike reluctantly praised before shrugging. “I liberated the key from the maid’s cart.”

Ginny frowned. “They left a master key sitting in the hallway?”

Mike’s cocky grin was back. “Nope. It was nice and safe in a locked closet.”

“Then how…”

“Rookie, a little known fact about yours truly is that if baseball hadn’t worked out for me I would have been an excellent cat burglar. In fact, I’m thinking about moving on to jewel heists when I’m retired.”

Ginny’s jaw dropped. “You broke into a locked closet just to get a key card?”

Mike crossed his arms and frowned. “No, I picked the lock to get the card because a rookie is disrespecting the entire team by pouting in her room. Be happy it was me. Al and Oscar were planning on coming over and they would have had hotel security open your door for them if you didn’t answer their knocks. I just saved your ass Baker.”

Ginny instinctively threw her hands in the air in frustration, only to gasp at the sharp pain that ran down her arm. She clutched her right arm, her multi-million dollar pitching arm, to her side. The pain was so intense she had to blink away tears, because there was no way in hell she was crying in front of Lawson.

“Where’s the brace?”

Ginny’s eyes snapped to Mike’s face. His tone of voice was low, calm, near menacing and the scowl on his face was fierce. This was Mike at his most furious. 

“What brace,” Ginny tried tentatively.

“Quit bullshitting me rookie. Where is your goddamn brace?” 

Ginny had never seen Mike this angry. “It’s in the bathroom,” she admitted. “I couldn’t get it back on after changing out of my clothes.”

The scowl softened as Mike let out a frustrated sigh. “God forbid you ask anyone for help, Baker. Give me the brace and I’ll help you get into it after you’re dressed.”

He expected an argument, but Ginny just nodded and retreated into the bathroom. She returned with a complicated shoulder immobilizer and handed it to Mike. “I’m going to take a quick shower. You can wait in the living room for me as long as you promise not to steal anything.”

“Baker, you don’t have anything worthy of my amazing talents. Now hurry up, I don’t have all day to wait for you.”

Ginny rolled her eyes at him before turning away. “It’s pretty early in the morning to be this cranky, old man. Sit down and take a nap. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”

There really wasn’t much to her hotel suite, just the living/dining room and the bedroom. He waited until the water turned on before moving out of her room. The brace was relatively standard as far as arm immobilization went. It took him all of two minutes to undo all the straps and Velcro that the rookie had mangled and get it straightened. He dropped to the sofa and groaned, still sore from last night’s game and red eye flight. 

He reached for the remote, only to find the coffee table full of items. He shamelessly sorted through them. Here was the story of his rookie, the real way she’d spent the last two days. In front of him was six pill bottles, all labeled with medicines he recognized. Anti-inflammatories, muscle-relaxants, and pain meds: things found in every professional athlete’s medicine cabinet at some time in their career. The expected iPad, mp3 player and laptop, although why she needed both a laptop and tablet he didn’t know. He leaned down to look under the table and found ice packs, bags of now thawed peas, and books ranging from Yogi Berra to mystery to..romance? He flipped it open to the middle of the book and scanned. Three pages in and his eyebrows were nearly touching his scalp. So this is what women read? It was like Penthouse Forum, but with a lot of emotions. Geez, maybe they should hand this stuff out to the kids in single-A ball and call it an instruction manual. He was surprised Baker read romance but hey, whatever got her mind of off her injury was all good with him. 

He reached his arm further under the table, stretching until he nearly fell off the damn sofa. He grabbed a bag and brought it up for inspection. It was a gallon sized sandwich bag full of rice. A reluctant smile broke through. She hadn’t been ignoring him. She hadn’t been pouting or drinking or partying or doing other stupid stuff to get through the first few post-injury days. Nope, his rookie had dropped her phone in water. 

He heard the shower shut off and quickly shoved everything back in place. He didn’t know if she’d appreciate him snooping through her stuff and he didn’t want a fight. By the time she finally came out, he was stretched out on the sofa watching the morning news. 

“You take forever, Baker. I think my beard grew another inch waiting for you.”

She snorted. “Thanks for the nightmares, Lawson.”

He clicked the TV off and stretched as he stood up. “You know you love the beard.”

“I do not love the beard.”

Mike scooped the brace off the sofa and approached Ginny. “Are you sure you want to wear just that top? The brace is going to itch on bare skin.”

Ginny looked down at her tank top. It wasn’t indecent by any means, but it was low and she never showed this much skin at the park if possible. “It’s all I can get on by myself.” She suddenly glared at Mike. “And don’t you dare say you’ll help me dress.”

Mike raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. “I wasn’t going to say anything. Geez, Baker.” His paused a moment before continuing. “If it helps, we’ve all been there. Anyone who has had an injury has needed help into or out of clothes. Have you ever broken ribs? You physically cannot put on any clothes without help. Our trainer Ed literally stripped and re-dressed me in the locker room because I couldn’t straighten up. And after Salvi’s knee surgery, I swear to God he couldn’t get his pants on by himself for two weeks. Either his wife, the physical therapist, or Ed had to help him.”

Baker looked like she wasn’t sure she believed him. “Seriously? You’re not making this up?”

Mike sighed. “Ask the team if you don’t believe me. Or ask any of the medical staff. They’ll all say the same thing. Now come here,” he instructed. “Let me get this brace on you and let’s go. If you make me late to the park, you’re running laps rookie.”

It wasn’t until she was standing in front of him that he could see the pallor beneath her latte toned skin, the sweat beading on her upper lip. “When did you last take your meds, Baker?”

She scowled at him and for a minute he didn’t think she was going to answer. Then she let out a sigh that implied he was a huge pain in her butt and answered. “About midnight.”

“You’re taking them as soon as we get this brace on.”

“I can’t take them on an empty stomach.”

Mike shook his head at her. “Always with the food, Baker. Well, lucky for you I’m the best captain on the planet.” He motioned towards her entry way with his chin. “I brought you food. Your gratitude can be shown with gifts of beer and promises of eternal obedience.”

She laughed out loud at that one. 

“Now get over here so I can put this thing on and we can go. You take forever to get ready.”

“You try getting ready using only your non-dominant hand, Lawson. I’d love to see you try brushing your teeth around the furry growth on your face,” Ginny retorted. She grabbed the immobilizer from his hand and fit her arm into the sling. As she held the sling in place against her body, Mike reached around at tightened straps and applied Velcro to adjust the fit. The silence felt just a little uncomfortable as his arms wrapped around her body and his hands slid across her skin to adjust the straps to her liking. The both worked hard to ignore the goosebumps that rose on her skin and the way his breath brushed against the side of her neck in a way that might not be totally accidental.

And then he looked at her arm, really looked at it, and he froze. Her upper arm was grotesquely swollen and bruised black. That level of swelling and bruising wasn’t normal. It was a pretty good sign that she had a serious injury, one that put next season in doubt. But Ginny hadn’t told him anything yet, and he wanted her to volunteer the diagnosis. He hoped she trusted him enough to tell him herself, instead of letting him hear it from the front office like the rest of the team.

Mike cleared his throat and stepped away. “Take the meds now. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll let you eat in my car.” He shot her a look. “You better not spill in my baby.”

Ginny grabbed the bag of food and headed for the door. “I’ll take them when I get back.”

“No, you’ll take them now,” Mike barked.

“Let it go Lawson,” she warned.

His hand shot out and grabbed her left arm to carefully pull her around to face him. “Now, rookie.”

“I’m not going into the clubhouse drugged up.”

“Why?”

For a second, he thought she was going to punch him. Instead she let out a sharp breath of exasperation. “Because I work with a bunch of children. What if I fall asleep on the sofa in the middle of one of your never-ending speeches? I’ll wake up with a goatee drawn in permanent Sharpie, or my hair 6 inches shorter. And God forbid I do or say something stupid. It would end up on video for all posterity to enjoy.” She tried to control her voice, but bitterness slipped in anyways.

Mike’s brow furrowed. “Rookie,” he began, only to stop. He ran his hand over his face before he tried again. “Jesus. No would cut your hair or draw on your face. Can the drama. We’re not children.”

“So these aren’t the same guys that were looking at stolen pictures of me? And weren’t these the same guys that stole all the towels from the locker room so Sonny and Melky had to walk across the locker room naked while it was full of reporters? And I’m pretty sure one of them was the jerk that nailed my cleats a few days ago.”

He snatched the pill bottles off the table and opened them, pouring out the appropriate amount of pills into his hand after reading the label. In three steps he reached the water bottle she had left on the table and thrust it at her. “I promise to keep the boys in line, no videos, no visible tattoos.” At her scowl, a chuckle escaped him. “Take your meds. You’re mean when you’re in pain.”

She balked momentarily before giving in and taking the handful of pills in one swallow. She muttered something under her breath and stomped towards the door, pausing only long enough to grab the bag of fast food.

“What was that Baker?”

She flashed a smile over her shoulder, the same one that she always wore whenever she thought she was funny. “I can’t repeat it, Lawson. I’ve always been taught to be kind to the elderly, and my words were definitely not kind.”

“Be careful rookie, or I’ll tell the team about your pink dinosaur pajamas.”

He expected her to be angry and make some cutting response. Instead, her laughter followed her into the hallway. “Be careful old man, or I’ll tell them I found you wearing them. And good luck explaining how you know anything about what I sleep in.”

***************

 

“Okay, I sent a group text to every contact in my phone staying that I was fine and explaining that my phone had broken. That should get everyone off my back.”

Lawson snorted in disbelief. “Not even close Baker. You’re going to pay for this for a while. And the front office is going to have many words for you.”

Ginny rested her head on the headrest and groaned. “They’re probably regretting my existence in the Padres organization right now.”

Mike snorted but held his silence. Ginny glared at him. “You could offer me reassurances here, captain. Maybe give me one of your endless speeches?”

“Why do you want me to lie to you, Baker?” He kept his face straight and tone even.

“You’re a jerk, you know that?”

“I do my best to keep your ego in check.”

Her phone rang and she glanced at the screen. “It’s Oscar. I suppose I have to answer this, don’t I?”

“Now, Baker.”

With a resigned sigh, she answered her phone. “Hi Oscar.” A pause, then “I know, my phone broke.” Another pause. “No, I don’t know where Amelia is. I’m sort of, well, maybe a little agent-less right now.”

Mike’s head whipped around to face her and his jaw dropped in shock. A blaring horn pulled his attention back to the road before he could question her.

“Yes, it would be great if I could meet with the doctor. I’ll go over now. Yes, I’ll come to the park and bring the records as soon as I’m done.” She paused to listen for a minute. “No, it’s okay. Mike’s here, I’m sure he’s okay with driving me. Uh huh. Okay. Sure thing. See you soon, Oscar.”

The second her finger hit the end call button, Mike snapped “What do you mean Amelia isn’t your agent? When did that happen?”

Instead of snapping back, Baker just closed her eyes and sighed. “Can you drop me off at the hospital? The doctor has the results of the MRI and wants to talk to me. I don’t want to take a cab or Uber. Not yet.”

“Are you using the team doc or a specialist?”

“A specialist,” she muttered. “It’s in the same medical wing attached to the hospital.”

“And what is this physician’s specialty,” Mike asked, careful to keep his tone neutral.

Ginny shook her head and looked out the window. When he repeated his question, she replied “elbow reconstruction,” in a whisper. Mike’s throat tightened at her answer. It wasn’t the words that bothered him, it was the way she said them, heart-broken and maybe even a little afraid. It blew him away that the woman that showed no fear, no weakness, could suddenly sound so human.

Suddenly she straightened and the Baker he knew reappeared. “Just drop me off in front of the hospital. I’ll just meet you at the park when I’m done.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. I don’t need someone to hold my hand. I can do this.”

Mike rolled his eyes so hard they nearly got stuck. “Get over yourself, Baker. I’ll stay in the office waiting area if it matters that much. You should be thanking me for this. When people see me, they’ll forget all about you. When all the fans swarm me for photos and all the women are shoving their phone numbers in my pocket, you can walk into the office unnoticed.”

Her laugh made him smile in response. “I’m so lucky to be in the presence of God’s gift to women.”

“Now you’re finally getting it Baker. I am indeed a legend.” She was laughing too hard to respond, and Mike could admit to feeling smug that he just made his rookie forget her fear.


	2. In which the Padres learn that a drugged Ginny has no filter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny reveals the extent of her injury to the Padres. She entertains them when she says exactly what she thinks and then breaks their hearts a bit when she reveals a little of her past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter went in a slightly different direction than I had intended when it started. I thought about breaking it up into two chapters, but just left it one long chapter instead. Let me know if you prefer two shorter chapters vs one long chapter.
> 
> And for the record, I've watched the Ft. Wayne Tin Caps play since childhood and I have nothing but respect for the organization.

“I’m not kidding, I come out of the office and there he is, surrounded by six women, one of whom has her hand in his pocket. His front pocket.” Ginny leaned back in her chair, looking around the clubhouse as her teammates sprawled on the sofas or reclined in their chairs facing her.

Sonny and Blip made faux sympathetic sounds at her statement, but most of the team just laughed. Salvi even high-fived Lawson. Ginny shook her head at their shenanigans but ignored them, trying to hold onto her scowl. “You’re missing the point, guys. He was supposed to protect me from the paps. Instead, all he did was get four women’s numbers and a red thong while I was hiding in a huge sweatshirt, and wearing sunglasses indoors to avoid the worst of the photographers.”

Several of the team grimaced in shared pain. Paparazzi and reporters were the price of fame, but it was still miserable. Livan spoke up from his chair next to hers. “Only five? What happened Lawson, the sixth woman changed her mind?”

Mike grinned and rocked back in his chair, enjoying the moment and ignoring the motions his rookie was giving him to shut up. “Oh no, I got her number. She made me promise to give it to Baker.” He stood up and made a show of patting his pockets before pulling the slip of paper out and handing it to her. “Mandy says to call her any time. She says she can be…adventurous.” 

There was a second of hesitation, like the boys weren’t sure if they were supposed to laugh. Then Livan leaned over and held out his fist. “Way to go, Mami! Adventurous is a good thing in a groupie.”

Ginny rolled her eyes at his teasing but couldn’t stop her laugh as she bumped her fist against his. The team roared with laughter, the awkward moment gone like it had never happened. She kicked his ankle with the toe of her sneakers. “You aren’t helping, Papi. Still, if you promise to do a better job shielding me from the cameras than our fearless captain did, the next time we go out I’ll send all of the adventurous groupies to you.”

The team took turns razzing Mike for not seeing the paps, Livan for needing a wingwoman to get his own women, and Ginny for having so many groupies that she could share. She let the noise surround her as she floated in her drugged haze. She propped her feet up on Livan’s legs, leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She half expected Livan to drop her feet on the floor, but he let them stay. Perhaps there was one perk for being female, while still being one of the guys.

“Oh no you don’t, Baker. Eyes open. You still haven’t reported what the doc said,” Lawson barked.

The laughter shut off in an instant. Ginny opened her eyes to see her team watching her solemnly. The guys had all seen her arm in a sling, seen the swelling and bruising, but they had chosen to give her time to tell them. Of course, they were all so busy reading her the riot act for not keeping them in the loop, it might have been an honest oversight on their collective parts. 

“Do you want to know the good news or the bad news,” she asked.

“Ginny…” Blip warned.

She huffed at him. “Fine. I have a spiral fracture of the humerus, with a butterfly fragment at the distal end.” She paused expectantly, but when the team was silent she continued. “The plan is surgery tomorrow to put in six flexible screws and a cast from just above my elbow to my fingers.” She grimaced at the thought of the cast.

“Recovery time,” Lawson prompted.

“Best guess is 6 months. I’m hoping to be ready for Spring Training.” 

Lawson leaned forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. “Whose best guess?” He had been in the meeting with the FO and knew what the doctor’s report said. He was proving a point by making her say it to the team, trying to keep expectations, both hers and the teams’, in check.

Ginny tried an innocent expression. “What do you mean?”

“Is it the doctor’s best guess, the front office’s best guess, or your best guess?”

Ginny bit her lip and held her silence for a full ten seconds before she caved. “Mine. The team doc said 10-14 months. It’s just his opinion though, because there are no case reports for this surgery on female pitchers. I know what my body can do better than he does and I’m telling you, 6 months is the right timeframe for me.”

Their continued silence made her nervous and that, combined with the drug high, made her babble. “Guys, that’s the good news. Well, except the cast, that’s the bad news. Don’t listen to what the doc says, and you sure can’t listen to the analytics guys in the FO.” A full on grin settled on her face before she actually started laughing.

Several of the guys broke out into matching smiles. “You are so high,” Blip said, shaking his head in fake disapproval.

“I’m not,” Ginny protested.

“Girl, you are laughing to yourself,” he reminded her.

“No, I’m laughing at the memory of Oscar’s face when I told him his stats team was shit.”

Eyes widened. “You didn’t,” Sonny said hesitantly. 

“I did. One of the FO guys ran numbers and decided I was seriously over my pitch count based solely on the fact I throw a screwball. I told them they weren’t accounting for the difference in female and male ligament laxity, but he insisted I get shut down immediately. It turns out I was right. The MRI showed that all ligaments in my shoulder and elbow are healthy with minimal wear and tear. I wish you could have seen their faces when I told them that.”

The team shifted in their seats, many of them looking nervously at each other. “I know that tone of voice,” Sonny muttered to Salvi. “It’s the tone my girlfriend uses right before…”

“So I said, ‘I told you so’,” Ginny said, her voice full of smug satisfaction.

Voohries leaned forward incredulously. “You told the entire front office, including the GM and club President, I told you so.”

Mike again rocked back in his chair, his hands linked behind his head. “Yup, she sure did.” He grinned wickedly. “You should have seen their expressions. It was a thing of beauty.”

“I wish I could have seen that,” Blip mused wistfully. “You should have recorded that. Every ballplayer has dreamed of telling someone in management ‘I told you so’. It figures that you would be the one to say it and not be demoted to single A.”

“Because only a woman could get away with it,” Salvi concluded emphatically. 

Ginny tensed and her feet dropped to the floor. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“It’s just that we men are all so used to hearing those words said in exactly that tone of voice that it brings out the instinctive response of…” he paused dramatically.

“I’m sorry, honey,” several guys said as one.

Groans filled the clubhouse as the men commiserated with each other. A couple of the single guys shook their head in embarrassment at the state of their fellow males, but were quickly the butt of jokes about not being able to get a woman to stay long enough to say it.

“Hey Ginny,” Sonny’s voice was a near shout to be heard over the male laughter. “Why do women feel the need to say ‘I told you so’ every chance they can?” Several of the men stared at him in disbelief. “What? She’s a woman, she’ll know.”

“And she’s blunt as hell when she’s drugged. She’ll tell you exactly what she thinks,” Blip added.

The men all quieted as their focus shifted back to her. “Really, it’s pretty simple. If I tell you the right way to do something and you choose to do it your way, even when you know it’s wrong, that makes you an idiot. Don’t be an idiot, and you won’t get an ‘I told you so’.”

Laughs and groans mixed in the clubhouse as the men debated this latest glimpse into the inner working of a woman’s mind. Ginny leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She kept shifting to find a comfortable spot. In frustration, she turned sideways in her chair, draping her legs over the armrest and back onto Livan’s lap. This let her cheek rest against the back of her seat and took all weight off of her throwing shoulder. 

Livan raised an eyebrow at her. “Comfortable, Mami?”

She smiled sleepily at him. “Getting there. I don’t suppose you would be willing to sit on the floor so I can have your chair, would you?”

He laughed at her, flashing his lethal dimples. “How about I move my chair back a little bit so you can sleep on the floor instead? I’ll even give you my sweatshirt to use as a blanket, just because I’m a nice guy.” 

Instead of laughing in return, Ginny stiffened, glaring at Livan and looking like she might kick his chair across the room. “I will never sleep near ballplayers.”  
Her scathing tone cut through the laughter and joking in the clubhouse and brought instant silence. All eyes focused on Ginny again, but she was too busy glaring at Livan to notice.

The Cuban studied her with all too perceptive eyes. “Why is that, Mami?” His hands were still casually resting on her legs in his lap, but his thumb began rubbing small circles on her ankle. The movement was subtle, invisible to the others, but it began to soothe away her anger.

She tried to shrug but the brace made it impossible. So instead she settled for a dismissive sound. “Because.”

“Because, why,” Livan persisted. 

“You nag like Lawson, did you know that?” When Livan looked a little hurt, Ginny conceded with an eyeroll. “Indiana.”

Livan raised an eyebrow. “What is Indiana?”

Blip answered. “The Fort Wayne TinCaps. The Padres’ A team.”

Only a handful of guys in the clubhouse had come up through the Padres’ farm system. Most were either trades or drafted out of college straight into AA. Blip, Lawson, Sonny, and Melky were the only other players that even knew where Fort Wayne was on a map.

“So…,” Sonny prompted.

“So…none of your business,” Ginny retorted. “Don’t you need to go workout or something?”

Lawson spoke up behind her. “I vaguely remember some sort of shake up in the Tin Caps a few years back. Something about player problems and the coaches being fired mid-season. There were some whispers about criminal activity.”

With Livan holding her legs in his lap Ginny couldn’t fully face Mike, instead having to look over her shoulder at him. “Memory is the first thing to go, old man. No one faults you for not remembering correctly.”

“Criminal activity, huh?” Salvi raised an eyebrow at her, his tone curious, teasing. “What exactly was the charge?”

That quickly, Ginny lost her patience. She glared at the first baseman. “Assault and battery,” she said harshly. 

The weighted silence in the room was deafening. Suddenly the team was looking everywhere except at her. Their expressions ranged from uncomfortable, to horrified, and a few looked furious. Only Blip met her eyes. His gaze held hers, letting her knew that he would support whatever she chose to say or not say. As much as she didn’t want to talk about it, and she really didn’t want to talk about it, she had to say something now. She couldn’t let the team pity her, not when she was just being fully accepted.

“I punched a teammate.”

That certainly had everyone’s eyes back on her. Even Mike leaned forward in his chair. “Excuse me?” His face reflected the same shock and surprise the rest of the team was showing.

Ginny pulled her legs off of Livan’s lap and turned in her chair to face the team. “You heard me. I punched a teammate.” 

“Why,” Sonny asked in amazement.

Ginny should have shrugged and blown the comment off, deflecting the question and turning everyone’s attention to something less uncomfortable. That’s what she did. That’s how she survived in this all male world. But not this time. Of course she knew that pain meds took away any filter between her mouth and her brain. It was one of the reasons she had fought Mike on taking them when she knew she was coming to the park. But suddenly she wanted to reach out a little, see if she could trust the guys with more than just the cover persona Ginny Baker needed to succeed in baseball.

“He had it coming. In fact, I would have done a hell of a lot worse if some of the guys hadn’t pulled us apart.”

Mike’s eyes flicked back and forth between her and Blip. “Baker. Explain.”

Ginny looked at Blip and he just shrugged his shoulders. Whatever she wanted to say was fine with him.

Ginny looked around the room, looking at the rapt attention on the men’s faces. “God, I feel like I’m a kindergarten teacher. I’ve got 23 kids waiting for story time.”

“Yup, pretty much,” Omar agreed with a nod. “We expect snacks too.” That startled a laugh out of Ginny. Omar didn’t talk much, but when he did, he was hilarious.

“I fell asleep on the bus during one of those 10 hour bus rides.” She paused to let the moans of shared pain quiet. “A few of the guys thought it would be funny to use that time to prank me. Well, they claimed it was just a prank. No one really believed that though.”

“What did they do, mami?”

“They glued my hat to my hair.”

The oxygen level in the room plummeted as the entire team sucked in their breath at once. “Holy shit,” Salvi whispered. “They touched your hair? They actually messed with a woman’s hair?”

Ginny nodded at the horrified expressions on the men’s faces, absurdly happy that they appreciated the cruel nature of the act. You didn’t need to have a wife or live-in girlfriend to know not to mess with a woman’s hair. “Oh yeah, they did. I had to cut off several chunks of my hair. I had two spots that had hair no more than 3 inches long.”

“I can see why you punched the guy,” Melky said with a nod. The other men mumbled in agreement.

“Oh no, that’s not why I punched him. The hair is why I put super glue on his cup.”

“Jesus! You put super glue in a man’s cup? Not cool Baker,” Mike exclaimed. Ginny glanced around the room and saw that many of the men instinctively had their hands covering their groin. It was obnoxious how quickly their sympathy switched from her to the asshole ballplayer.

“Thanks for the support guys,” Ginny bit out. “I didn’t put it in his cup, just around the edges. If he would have asked, I would have given him a solution to remove it without taking off skin. Instead, he did it the hard way and lost both his skin and his pride.”

“Frankly, he got off light. He deserved a lot more than having his cup glued to him,” Blip inserted.

“So why did you punch him,” Sonny pressed.

“Because he sucker punched Blip. Blip had busted a guy for stealing all of my clothes from my locker while I was in the shower. While Blip was calling the guy out, Glue Boy stepped out from the equipment area and sucker punched Blip. I had come out of the shower just in time to see it, so I punched him. Then he hit me back and it was on after that.”

Livan leaned forward in his chair. “He actually hit you?” The Cuban’s easy going smirk was gone, revealing an intensity that made Ginny very glad he was on her side.

Ginny gave a one shoulder shrug. “Well yeah. I knew what would happen when I threw the first punch. Still worth it.”

“Where the hell was the rest of the team while this was happening,” Lawson demanded. He glared accusingly at Blip, Melky and Sonny as if they were somehow to blame when two of the three hadn’t even been on the team.

“Some were already on the field, but most were around the area. There were enough of them to start a brawl.”

“And no one stopped this? The entire team knew what was happening and not one person thought it was wrong,” Lawson growled.

Blip spoke up. “You mean did the team see Glue Boy swing at me and then Ginny swing at him? If they were in the clubhouse they did. That’s why it became a brawl.”

“I’m not sure it can really be called a brawl,” Ginny interrupted. “Only a handful of people were throwing punches. A few were pushing and shoving, but most of the guys were just trying to separate us.”

Blip ignored her interruption. “Did everyone know about the harassment? It’s hard to say. For sure the three guys causing problems did. Some of the guys knew something about it and said nothing. Most of the guys were either oblivious or tried to stop it. I know several of us went to the skipper about it. When that didn’t help, we went to the front office.”

“The manager and other coaches didn’t help at all?” Mike asked.

Ginny actually laughed. “Oh, hell no. The pitching coach wanted nothing to do with me. He was actually going to quit because I was signed, but the manager convinced him to stay. He was blatantly rude, and I think some of the players just followed his lead. The manager always had his coaches’ backs, so there was no help from him.”

“What about…,” Sonny began.

Ginny slashed her hand through the air. “Enough. I’m done talking about this. It’s in the past and I learned a valuable lesson. Discussion over.”

“What lesson did you learn,” Mike asked.

“To not throw a punch with my pitching hand. I couldn’t pitch for nearly a week.”

Laughter broke out among the pitchers. “I can’t believe it took you that long to learn that, Baker! Most of us had that figured out in high school,” Butch chuckled.

“Gee Butch, how could I have waited so long to get into a fist fight? What a disappointment I am.”

“There’s no way the Padres would let something like that slide, even in single A ball. What was the fallout,” Sonny asked, unable to let the matter drop.

“Mass suspensions,” Blip answered. “Six of us got five game suspensions, including Bubble Butt over there, but we all knew the only reason she got suspended that long was because she couldn’t pitch with her punching hand too bruised to grip a ball.” Ginny started arguing, but Blip raised his voice and kept talking. “The entire coaching staff got fired. Glue Boy and the clothes thief got sent to the DL with unspecified injuries. And worst of all, the Padres sent down their HR department and we all had hours of harassment meetings,’ legal ramifications of poor decisions’ meetings, and individual meetings with the staff therapist, who, by the way, said we were all immature for our age.”

“How mature do they think nineteen year old kids should be,” Voorhies wondered. There was a moment of silence while each player thought about what they were like in single A ball.

Butch spoke up. “I don’t know, let me check. Hey Melky, how mature were you last week?”

Much needed laughter filled the clubhouse. The team joked and razzed each other, lightening the mood as they all argued over who was the most immature person on the team. Ginny laughed with the team as she was thrown into the immaturity contest based partially on her status as one of the younger players on the team.

“So who did you say Glue Boy was?” Sonny causally asked her when the laughter was quieting.

“Did you not just hear what I said Sonny? I told you I’m done discussing this.” Ginny’s voice lashed out, instantly silencing the room. She realized that once again she had 23 men staring at her in stunned silence. 

_See, this is why you keep your mouth shut, you idiot,_ she cursed herself. _For someone who just wants to be one of the guys, you sure manage to make it impossible for yourself to fit in._

Livan shuddered theatrically, breaking the awkward silence. “Don’t do that, mami. You sound just like the nun that taught my third grade class.”

Ginny leaned over and gave him a side armed hug. “You poor thing,” she soothed. “The nightmares must be horrible. I have no doubt you were the one that got switched the most.”

Livan laughed and playfully pushed her away. “Naw, I could usually talk my way out of trouble.”

“I bet you could,” Blip muttered. Blip and Mike shared a look, one that said this discussion about teammates and trust would continue later, after Baker left.

The topic turned to stories of childhood pranks and misbehavior and, being the nature of athletes, it became a game of one-upmanship. Ginny laughed with the rest of the team although she didn’t have many of her own stories to add. Her entire life had revolved around baseball and she rarely had the free time required to get into trouble. Once again she settled sideways in her chair, legs draped across the arm and onto Livan’s lap. Once again, she smiled sleepily at him as he gently rubbed her ankle. “Don’t let me fall asleep, okay?,” she murmured.

“How about I promise to keep you safe instead,” he softly responded.

“I can keep myself safe. I don’t need you or Mike or Blip to protect me. Just don’t let me fall asleep,” she repeated.

Livan sighed. “Fine,” he capitulated. “I’ll shove you out of your chair if you start to snore.”

Ginny laughed softly. “You’re such a jerk.” And then she closed her eyes, just for a moment she promised herself, and let herself relax around her teammates.


	3. Secrets and bats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blip gives in and answers the one question the team really wants to know. Then Ginny makes an unexpected return to the clubhouse and she wants to talk bats. This is told from Blip's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Instead of adult-ing and finding a better job, doing housework, or taking over the world, I wrote fanfic. My house is a mess, my boss is still a jerk, and no one is bowing to my will yet, but I do have two new chapters out. It's all about priorities. Comments will make it all worth while. :-)

“So who was it?”

Blip was surprised the men had waited this long to ask him. After all, he had walked Ginny out to the players’ lot, ordered an Uber for her, made sure she got in her Uber, and stopped at the bathroom on the way back to the clubhouse. They even let him sit down in his chair before someone voiced what they all wanted to know.  
“Sonny, if Gin wanted you to know, she would have told you,” he tried.

“She never said she didn’t want me to know, she just said she was done talking about it. Well, she’s not here, so we can talk about it,” Sonny rationalized.

“Blip, who glued her hair?” Mike sounded very much like the team captain he was supposed to be. The one he was before the clusterfuck that was the failed Cubs trade.

Blip looked him dead in the eye. “Her catcher.” Because he was watching Mike closely, he saw the way Mike’s eyes closed for a little longer than a blink and his shoulders slump just a little.

Livan leaned forward. “Her catcher did that? He glued her hair?” He shook his head slowly, like he couldn’t accept Blip’s words. 

Trust between a pitcher and their catcher was a sacred thing. It was the most binding of the unwritten rules in baseball. A pitcher had to implicitly trust their catcher, even if they hated each other off the field. In some ways a catcher had a huge impact on a pitcher’s career. The pitcher’s ERA could go skyhigh if they were stuck with a catcher that didn’t know how to study hitters. The hurler could and would be crucified in the media if they blew a lead, yet no one outside of the team would know that it was the catcher that called for that specific pitch. High ERAs and media hatred do not make for good money or long contracts. For a catcher to betray that trust was unheard of.

“Oh he did it alright, and worse.” Blip looked around the room quick, assessing the players. Ginny was accepted by the team, but only begrudgingly by some of them, and he hated giving them a reason to make her life harder. The pitching staff looked horrified, several of them rubbing their foreheads or beards in an effort to make it more understandable. Livan kept shaking his head, like he could change history if he just continued that motion. Salvi looked like he wanted to kill someone. Even the players who only tolerated her presence seemed bothered by what had happened.

“What’s his name,” Mike asked quietly.

“No. We’re not going there. The team released him at the end of the season. The organization didn’t want that type of cancer in the clubhouse. Not only could he kill team chemistry, he was a legal liability. He’s hasn’t been in baseball for a few years now. Let it go.” Blip’s tone of voice shot down any further inquiries of that sort.

“What about the others,” Livan asked. 

“The other two were traded.”

“Are they still playing,” Livan persisted. Blip took a minute to study the rookie. It didn’t escape his notice that the poster boy for the immature, self-centered baseball player stereotype was taking an interest in Ginny when he wouldn’t care if the rest of his team fell off a cliff.

“It doesn’t matter. The last thing Ginny needs is her team going on a headhunting mission and drawing questions from the media. Our job is to focus the season, getting to the playoffs.” It sounded so easy for Blip to say it to the guys, to play the team captain and rally them for the greater good of the team. But Blip knew who the former teammates were and he knew where they were playing. He’d been tracking their progress through the minors. One was languishing in double A. The other one though, he was in the majors. The last thing Blip was going to do is give the team a big bullseye on next season’s calendar when their focus needed to stay on the here and now.

As if summoned by her name being spoken, the clubhouse doors slammed open and Ginny stormed into the clubhouse. Well, as close to storming as one could get when she looked half asleep and slightly wobbly on her feet. She froze like a deer in the headlights under their combined gaze.

“Oh, hey guys. Shouldn’t you bums be out earning those paychecks? It’s hard to practice with your butts stuck to your chairs.”

“Shouldn’t you be back to your hotel by now,” Mike countered.

The question mobilized her and she stepped into her locker room and sounds of her rummaging could be heard. Ginny’s disappearance brought attention to the guy who had snuck in the doors behind her. He was big. Like really big. Like maybe he was lineman on a football team big. 

“Who are you,” Mike asked bluntly. It wasn’t the rudest he had ever been, not by a long shot, but he certainly wasn’t welcoming a stranger into his clubhouse without a damn good explanation.

Ginny popped out of her dressing room. “Oh, this is Marsallis. Marsallis, these are the guys.” She made a general wave towards the room with the bat she was holding in her hand. 

Marsallis gave an awkward wave. “Hi.”

“Ginny, what are you doing,” Blip asked. Ginny gave several one armed practice swings with her bat, frowning in concentration.

“Getting a bat, of course,” she answered, like it was perfectly obvious. She looked around the room, her eyes focusing on Blip. “What size is your bat?” She held up her hand to ward off the anticipated jokes. “I mean your baseball bat.”

Blip was confused, but that was nothing new around Ginny so he answered readily enough. “32 ounces, 33 inches maple.”

Ginny nodded and focused back on the bat in her hand, swinging it with a backhanded tennis swing. 

“Salvi? What about yours?”

“32.5 ounces, 32 inches , ash.” 

“Omar?”

“31 ounces, 35 inches. Maple.”

Ginny looked up quickly, intrigued. “Really? Odd combination.”

Omar shrugged, trying to be casual when he felt anything but. “I’m leadoff, my job is to get on base. Light weight means quicker bat speed, long bat means I can cover the entire strike zone.”

“He’s not the best leadoff batter in baseball only because he’s beautiful,” Salvi called out. Omar blushed at the team’s chuckles.

Ginny looked at her bat with consideration. “Hmm, maybe I should try that,” she mused.

“Do you really think a bat is going to help the 0-For-Your-Career slump you’re in Baker,” Mike asked.

Ginny cracked a smile as the team laughed. “Well, it couldn’t hurt,” she conceded. With a nod she moved towards the equipment room. She stopped behind Livan’s chair.

“What’s your bat?”

Livan leaned back in his chair and tipped his head up to see her. “34 ounces, 34 inches. Maple.”

Ginny shook her head. “Of course you’d have to have the biggest bat.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I need to borrow your bat quick.” With no further explanation she vanished through the equipment room door.

A sneeze drew all eyes back to Marsellis, who still stood in the doorway. “So who are you and why are you in my clubhouse,” Mike asked, pinning the stranger with a hard look.

The man gave a quick nod towards the equipment room. “I’m her Uber driver. She had me bring her back here, then insisted I come into the stadium with her.” The used his thumb to point over his shoulder to the clubhouse doors. “Ginny said it would only take a second. My car is idling in the players’ lot.”

“Maybe you should go wait with it,” a voice muttered from the back of the room.

“Hey!” Ginny came back out with a bat, presumably Livan’s, and pointed at the room. “Leave him alone. He’s a friend.”

Livan rose. “What are you doing with my bat Mami?”

Ginny waved in his general direction and headed for the door. “Don’t worry Papi, I’ll bring it back soon. I’ll clean it and everything.”

Livan stared at the doors closing behind Ginny, and Blip nearly laughed at the perplexed look on the Cuban’s face. Sooner or later almost everyone fell under her spell, and it looked like the cocky catcher would be no different.

Marsallis cleared his throat. “And you’re all okay with this,” he asked. Given that the team had no idea what he was talking about it wasn’t a surprise when no one answered him. He chuffed out a disbelieving breath. “I’ll guess I’ll go stop her then.” He gave a quick shake of his head, like the entire team was a massive disappointment to him, and was out the door in two strides.

The room was silent for a count of ten, a record for the boisterous clubhouse. “What do you think he meant,” Sonny asked.

Livan slowly turned to face Blip. “She wouldn’t…” he began.

Blip was out of his chair in a flash. “She would.” He ran out the door, Livan hot on his heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't really planned on writing this chapter, but I think they guys would go absolutely nuts without knowing some more info about Glue Boy, don't you?


	4. A Tongan, a Cuban, and an American walk into a hotel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn what Ginny planned to do with the bat. Told from Livan's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought it would be fun to try a cliffhanger ending for chapter 3. Then I remembered how much I hate cliffhangers when I'm reading, so I quickly finished this chapter as an apology. I can't tell you how much your comments mean to me!

When the team walked out the door the first thing they saw was Ginny wrapped up in a Livan bear hug. The second thing was the big guy, Marsallis, was still holding the bat above his head, just in case Ginny escaped Livan. The third was Blip talking angrily into his cell phone, trying to shush everyone so he could hear the caller.

“Let me go you jerk,” Ginny grumped. 

“You aren’t going anywhere until we figure it out,” Livan returned.

When Livan refused to release her, she finally relented and relaxed back against him. Her spine slumped against his chest and her head tipped back to rest on his shoulder. His arm stayed tightly wrapped around her waist, but his second arm, the one that was wrapped around her upper chest relaxed. He smiled, grateful Ginny couldn’t see it or she’d try to rearrange his face.

Livan watched as Lawson walked out of the building and his gaze immediately found Ginny. Livan tipped his head down until his lips were nearly touching her ear. “Just relax, Mami,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.” Instead of kicking him or telling him off in three different languages, she took his suggestion to heart. Her eyelids drifted shut and her good arm slid down to rest along top of his that was still wrapped around her waist. He had originally grabbed her to keep her from retrieving her –no, wait it was his- bat, but also to make sure she stayed upright because, honestly, she was unsteady on her feet. However, the teammates that just entered the parking lot didn’t see that. No, what they saw was Ginny completely relaxed against him and his arms wrapped around her. From the scowls on each man’s face, Livan assumed they all thought he was taking advantage of the situation to get close to Ginny. For a second he wanted to punch one of them, all of them, for thinking that he was that type of person.

Ginny felt Livan tense around her. She tipped her face up to meet his eyes. “I was going to bring your bat back. I really didn’t plan to crush his skull or anything. Well, unless he grabbed me again, then his head was going to meet your bat. All I wanted to do was go back to my room and sleep.” Against her will, her eyes drifted shut again and she kept her cheek resting against his chest. 

Suddenly, it was easy for Livan to regain that smirk, the one that drove the team nuts. Because right now, Ginny trusted him enough to be falling asleep in his arms. Okay, so maybe they were standing up and in a public place. And if he had to be completely honest, he was more or less supporting her because she was passing out, not falling asleep. Still, he considered this a huge thing, especially given her history with catchers. He gave a small nod to himself. Yeah, he could do this teammate thing with her. He’d show her not all catchers were assholes. He glanced at the team again. Well, not all catchers were assholes to their own pitchers at least. 

So he stayed with her when the police showed up and listened to her explain how a photographer had grabbed her arm, her broken arm, when she tried to walk into the hotel lobby and how he had squeezed it hard in hopes of getting a photo of her in tears. And Livan held his temper when what he really wanted to do was grab his bat from Marsailles, who still had it for some reason, and hunt down the photographer himself. He listened to her hesitance to press charges due to all the negative publicity it might bring, and fully supported her decision to make the report and file a restraining order against the paparazzi anyways.

And somehow he ended up in Marsallis’s car, both men playing bodyguard until she was in her room. Lawson had objected, but Livan pointed out that he wasn’t starting today and, surprise surprise, Blip actually supported Livan’s plan. Marsallis drove the car around an extra few minutes to give the police time to arrive at the front door of the Omni to arrest the pap. Then the big guy drove them to the delivery dock and parked behind a semi. The three of them hustled through the dock and kitchens, and into a service elevator.

“You guys are awesome,” Ginny told them as they slipped into the elevator. “Thanks for all of your help.”

“Hey, that’s what friends are for,” Marsallis told her.

“You’ve known her for about ten minutes,” Livan told him. “I’m not sure that qualifies you as a friend.”

“It does in my book,” Ginny warned. “He stepped in and physically blocked the photographer from seeing me, took me back to the park, and is helping me sneak into my room. That sure sounds like a friend to me, right Marsallis?”

Marsallis gave her a wide smile. “You got that right, little one.”

Ginny laughed. “You’re the only person that has ever called me that.”

Marsallis shrugged. “I’m a Tongan rugby player. Almost everyone is little to me.”

While he would play tag with sharks before admitting it to anyone, Livan felt a little small next to the Tongan, too. The man must have been 6’7” and 275 pounds, almost all of it bulky muscle. Livan looked at the group’s reflection in the polished copper doors and flexed to make himself look bigger, just in case the other two were watching.

“You are lucky to have such great bodyguards, Mami. Not everyone could have two handsome men risk their lives to protect her.”

Ginny rolled her eyes as the elevator stopped at her floor. “I’ll let you know how lucky I feel as soon as I find any great, handsome bodyguards willing to risk their lives for me.”

Marsallis chuckled as he stepped out of the elevator first. A quick glance up and down the hallway confirmed that they hotel security had honored the Padres’ request to block access to Ginny’s floor temporarily. 

Ginny pushed past him. “This isn’t a secret mission Marsallis, I’m fine. You guys can go.”

Marsallis wagged his finger at her. “No no, a good bodyguard never leaves his charge unprotected. We’ll leave after we check your room,” he teased.

Ginny stiffened and shot him a glare. “I don’t need you to protect me,” she bit off. Her fierce tone was ruined by the huge yawn she couldn’t hide.

Livan wrapped his arm around her waist and gently propelled her down the hall. “Of course you can. That’s why you were taking _my_ bat,” he paused to shoot her a dirty look, “to knock a guy’s head off his shoulders.”

Ginny sighed. “I told you I wouldn’t have actually hit him, I just planned to carry it with me like a silent threat. You know, a whole “speak softly and carry a big stick” type of thing.”

Both men looked blankly at her. “Teddy Roosevelt?” She thought a minute. “Oh. Sorry.” Neither man was American, so expecting them to know Roosevelt quotes was a bit of a stretch.

When they reached her door, Livan held his hand out. “Give me your key. I’ll check your room.”

Ginny leaned back against her door, guarding the card key in her back pocket. “Nice try. You’re not coming in my room. Who knows what you’ll do once you are in.” She laughed up at him, expecting him to laugh back.

Livan just stared at her, deadly serious. “Ginny, it’s not impossible for someone to get into your hotel room if they really wanted to. Security is lax, keys can be lost, and people can be really creative if they’re driven. I’ve had groupies sneak into my room more than once.”

Marsallis nodded. “Same, except mine was a jealous husband.”

Livan winced in sympathy. “No good, _amigo_. Stay far away from married women. Even if they say their husband doesn’t care. He will care if he finds out his wife is screwing someone famous. Trust me.” Livan couldn’t suppress the shudder that the memory brought out or the compulsion to rub the scar on his arm.

Marsallis shot him a look. “He wasn’t married to a woman, _amigo_.”

Livan’s eyebrow rose. “Either way, avoid husbands.” He glanced at Ginny. “You too, Mami.”

“I’m not gay, Livan.”

Livan suppressed his smile, smug that he now knew her preferences without having to ask. “Avoid jealous wives then. Women,” he shook his head, “they can be mean. Very mean.”

She reached out and patted his cheek with a laugh. “You poor thing. It’s so hard having women throw themselves at you, isn’t it?”

Livan’s hand was in her back pocket to grab the card key before she knew it. He had the door opened and was pushing into her room before she could stop sputtering long enough to yell at him. It didn’t stop her from grabbing the belt loop on his jeans and tugging him back, though. 

“If you’re that worried, you should let Marsallis go first. He’s a lot more intimidating.”

Outrage swept through him and he spun to face her. “I’m very intimidating! No one messes with me.”

She laughed right in his face. It only took him a second to realize she had said that just to get a rise out of him. He reluctantly smiled. “Not nice, Mami.” 

Marsallis snorted as he squeezed past them and took in the room at a glance. “I’m sure your ego can survive the hit.” 

“Well now that you can both see I’m perfectly safe, you can leave.”

Livan smiled wickedly as a thought popped into his head. “Not before we discuss payment, of course.”

The smile vanished from Ginny’s face. Livan’s heart dropped as she took a big step away from him. Jesus, he felt like an ass. “Not like that, Mami. Never like that.”

He could feel Marsallis step right up behind him, making the hairs rise on the back of his neck. “You want me to teach him some manners,” the big man rumbled.

Livan tried to make his sidestep appear casual, like he wasn’t trying to get out of giant’s arm reach. “You’re safe with us, Mami. We’re your bodyguards, remember?” He kept his tone gently chiding and his posture relaxed, all the while his stomach churned at her reaction to his teasing.

Ginny stiffened and stepped forward to poke her finger in his chest. “Your reward is that I’m won’t beat you with your own bat.”

There she was, the tough woman Livan respected. “I’m afraid that's not enough,” he sighed.

Ginny ground her teeth. “What do I have to do to get you to leave?”

There was his opening. “I want to choose your cast.”

He watched her mouth fall open. “What?”

“Your cast, the one you get after your surgery tomorrow. I want to choose it.”

“Why,” she asked incredulously. 

Livan was too smart to answer that one. “Marsallis wants to be the one to drive you to your surgery tomorrow. When did you say it was?”

He nearly laughed as he watched her try to cross her arms because Ginny was adorable when she was angry. She couldn’t hide the grimace when her arm shifted in the sling though and his amusement died a quick death. She needed more meds and a lot more sleep.

“I didn’t say,” she said stubbornly.

“Well say it now,” Marsallis returned. He shot Livan a look that let him know what the big man thought of Livan’s interference before returning his gaze to Ginny.

It took five minutes of arguing but by the time both men left they had the surgery time, plans to meet tomorrow, and a newly re-medicated Ginny propped up on the sofa. He had mistakenly joked about helping her to bed. If her left handed punch to his shoulder was any indication, her right handed punch must have given that asshole catcher a hell of a black eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I forget, I wanted to point out that Ginny's injury is an actual injury suffered by a baseball pitcher. I found it in a medical journal while looking up something completely unrelated. Without ruining any further surprises, I'm happy to report that the unnamed pitcher is still pitching in the majors ten years after the injury.


	5. The danger of group text

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are the responses to Ginny's group text. Leave it to family, friends and teammates to make a simple text unnecessarily complex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried a million different ways to write this until I realized that all of these conversations would be had via text while Ginny is confined to her hotel room. I was inspired by leafpage's work.
> 
> I just can’t bring myself to use text slang, so it’s all in proper English because I’m a grammar nerd.

**Ginny group text to all contacts:** Hey all, sorry I haven’t been able to answer calls/texts. I dropped my phone in water. Don’t worry, I’m fine. This is a group text so don’t reply here.

 

**Evelyn to Ginny:** Girl, I sent you 34 text messages and left 12 voice mails. I would have left more but your mailbox is full. You’re lucky I’m in Florida with the boys or I’d have kicked your door down. And why am I not on the ‘accepted calls’ list with the hotel? They wouldn’t put me through to your room.

**Ginny to Evelyn:** I said sorry! And we have some serious catching up to do…

**Evelyn to Ginny:** Oh? You may be forgiven if you have juicy details for me. If not, you better get some quick!

 

**Kyle to Ginny:** Who is this?

**Ginny to Kyle** : Is this not Kyle?

**Kyle’s former number** : Nope

**Ginny** : Sorry!

**Kyle’s former number** : No worries. Glad to hear you’re okay.

**Ginny** : LOL thanks.

*delete contact*

 

**Tommy Miller to Ginny:** Did something happen to you? Let me turn on every single channel on tv to find out.

**Ginny:** Aren’t you funny.

**Tommy:** All I’m saying is you didn’t need to hurt yourself just to have an excuse to text me.

**Ginny:** I see Chicago didn’t make you any less of a jerk.

**Tommy:** Please, you know you miss me.

**Ginny:** I do not.

**Tommy:** Uh huh, sure you don’t. That’s why you’re texting me.

**Ginny:** Nice try. Are you so insecure you need me to lie to you?

**Tommy:** Nope, I know the truth. Though if you were going to get hurt, couldn’t you have done it before I got traded?

**Ginny:** *no response*

**Tommy:** Baker?

**Ginny:** *no response*

**Tommy:** Shit. You’re not going to do something like have Sonny bean me in retaliation the next time we play, right?

**Ginny:** *2 hours later* Relax, I was watching a movie. And no, I won’t have Sonny bean you. Next season, I’ll do it myself.

**Tommy:** Not that any pitch you throw would hurt, but I’ll use my upcoming World Series ring to protect myself.

**Ginny:** And you’re welcome for not getting hurt before the trade. If you miraculously win the Series, you owe me big.

**Tommy:** I owe you?

**Ginny:** You better hope the Padres win it all because if the Cubs do, you’re going to be naming your next kid Ginny.

**Tommy:** Have fun explaining that to my wife. She’ll kill us both.

**Ginny:** Looks like you need to lose then. Don’t worry, just pitch as bad as you always do and you’ll be fine.

**Tommy:** Looks like staying in San Diego didn’t make you any less of a jerk.

**Ginny:** LOL. You know you miss me…

 

**Group Text**

**Mom to Group:** Genevieve Rose Baker, did you just text your mother to tell her you’re okay?

**Ginny:** Mom, this is a group chat. Everyone can see what you’re typing.

**Mom:** Well good. Then I can tell them I raised you better than to group text family and friends regarding important information!

**Ginny:** *frantically calls Mom*

 

**Lawson to Group:** Genevieve???

**Ginny:** GROUP TEXT!!!

 

**LAWSON to Padres group:**  Welcome to the newly formed group text for the Padres.

**Sonny:** Why?

**Lawson:** To harass Genevieve Rose.

**Sonny:** Genevieve?

**Blip:** Your name is really Genevieve?

**Salvi:** Don’t forget Rose

**Blip:** How did I not know this?

**Lawson:** Keeping secrets from your teammates rookie?

**Ginny:** You really want to go there Mikey?

**Livan:** Why am I in this text?

**Ginny:** Because we’re stuck with you.

**Melky:** burn!

**Livan:** Very funny little Rosie.

**Salvi:** Rosie. I like it.

**Ginny:** I will hurt you both.

**Blip:** I propose the new name of G-Rose to the court.

**Sonny, Salvi, Melky, Omar:** I second.

**Ginny:** Really? Even you Omar? I expected so much better from you.

**Lawson:** I approve the motion.

**Ginny:** We aren’t even in court!

**Lawson:** Further argument will result in fines.

**Ginny:** You guys suck.

**Lawson:** For disrespect to your team, you’re now fined with having to buy the first round of drinks.

 

**Amelia:** *no response*

 

**Cara:** I’m glad you’re ok. The news said you were hurt?

**Ginny:** Yeah. Surgery tomorrow.

**Cara:** Wow, that sucks.

**Ginny:** Yeah. Still, the sooner it’s over the sooner I can get back to pitching.

**Cara:** I kind of thought you deleted my number because you were mad.

**Ginny:** Not mad. I’m glad you sent the video to someone that can help, not posted it to YouTube.

**Cara:** Are you being sarcastic or sincere? I can’t tell. Remind me to invent a sarcasm font.

**Ginny:** I’m sincere you nut.

**Cara:** When you’re feeling better we need to have another girls’ night out.

**Ginny:** Deal. Only no bathtubs or sneakers.

**Cara:** Fine. I’ll settle for bare feet and lots of strippers. Or your hot teammates.

**Ginny:** I’ll do you a favor and keep you away from my teammates. They’re crazy.

**Cara:** Hot and crazy are my two favorite traits in a guy or girl.

**Ginny:** LOL. Well then you’ll love the Padres…

 

**Will:** I’m glad you’re okay.

**Ginny:** Thanks Will. How are you doing?

**Will:** *no response*

**Ginny:** Are you ignoring me or too busy to answer?

**Will:** *no response*

 

**Noah:** I wish you hadn’t sent that nurse away.

**Ginny:** I don’t need a live in nurse, Noah. I’m fine.

**Noah:** Yeah, but I’m in Germany and can’t see that for myself. I could come home.

**Ginny:** I told you there’s no need. Do your conference thing and I’ll see you when you get back.

**Noah:** You are a difficult woman. I’ll see you next week. Miss you.

**Ginny:** Miss you too Noah.

 

**Jordan:** Hey Ginny, it’s Jordan.

**Ginny:** *long pause* I didn’t know that this was still your number.

**Jordan:** So this was an accidental text.

**Ginny:** Not really.

**Jordan:** I understand if it was just an accident. I hope you get better soon.

**Ginny:** Thanks.

**Jordan:** Just so you know, if you ever want to talk, I’m here.

**Jordan:** It’s ok to say no. I’ll understand.

**Ginny:** I’d like to talk to you sometime.

**Jordan:** Really?

**Ginny:** Yeah. It’s lucky you kept the same number.

**Jordan:** I kept the same number on purpose. Just in case old friends wanted to find me.

**Ginny:** Oh

**Jordan:** Whenever you’re ready.

 

 

**Lawson:** When should I pick you up?

**Ginny:** For?

**Lawson:** Your surgery. Unless you plan to skip it, you need a ride. When should I be there?

**Ginny:** I got a ride. You need your beauty sleep old man.

**Lawson:** Who is giving you a ride?

**Ginny:** Why are you so nosy? Go torment the relievers or something.

**Lawson:** Baker

**Ginny:** Lawson

**Lawson:** Now

**Ginny:** Marsallis is driving me.

**Lawson:** The Uber guy you met for 5 minutes? Not smart. You can’t trust a guy you just met, rookie. Is he going to get the post-surgery instructions, too?

**Ginny:** Marsallis is awesome. I’ll have someone get all the info. No worries.

**Lawson:** Who? Rhonda? Not Evelyn, she’s in Florida. Not Amelia, you’re “agentless”.

**Ginny:** Quit nagging! I’ll be fine.

**Lawson:** You don’t have anyone, do you? You’re going to convince them that you can do it alone and then forget everything they say because you’re doped up. I’m going to get called to get you anyways.

**Ginny:** Seriously, I have someone. Drop it already!

**Lawson:** Who?

**Ginny:** OMG. Fine. Livan.

*no response*

**Ginny:** Lawson?

*no response*

**Ginny:** Did you just have a heart attack? Do I need to call 911?

**Lawson:** I was restarting my phone. There was an error. It said that Duarte was going to the hospital with you but there is no way that’s right.

**Ginny:** Don’t be such a baby.  

**Lawson:** Of all 7 billion people in the world, why him?

**Ginny:** Because he doesn’t play tomorrow, he never sleeps so who cares how early he has to be here, he asked nicely. I have more reasons if you need.

**Lawson:** I have to hit the field. I’ll call you after the game.

**Ginny:** If I don’t answer it’s because I’m sleeping, not ignoring you.

**Lawson:** It’s impossible to ignore me Baker.

**Ginny:** Challenge accepted. Consider yourself ignored as of…now.

**Lawson:** You wouldn’t.

**Lawson:** Of course you would.

**Lawson:** Alright rookie, it’s on. Consider yourself warned.

 

**Ginny:** Warned about what?

**Lawson:** *no response*

**Ginny:** Lawson?

**Lawson** : *no response*

**Ginny** : Really?

 

That night Mike smiled smugly to himself when Ginny answered his call on the first ring. He was getting to know his rookie well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are the reason I keep writing. I'm a 'ho for comments. :-)


	6. Stitches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Livan has a big mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a fluffy little transition chapter because, hey, I love Livan.

** Private Text **

**Livan to Ginny:** Just so you know, it wasn’t my fault.

**Ginny:** What wasn’t your fault?

**Livan:** Nothing. Nothing was my fault.

**Ginny:** What did you do?

**Livan:** *no response*

 

** Padres’ Group Text **

**Blip:** Tell me you aren’t really going to let him pick your cast.

**Ginny:** Who?

**Blip:** The guy who just announced it to the entire team.

**Ginny:** He didn’t.

**Salvi:** He did.

**Ginny:** Livan? Do you know what happens to snitches?

**Livan:** What?

**Voorhees:** Is she really gonna go there?

**Ginny:** They get stiches, Livan. Snitches get stitches.

**Sonny:** Of course she went there.

**Lawson:** I feel like I should probably talk about a non-violent workplace, but really, this could be fun.

**Omar:** Make sure to use his own bat. Skulls on wooden bats create a dead spot in the wood and it decreases the distance the ball will travel.

*2 minute pause*

**Melky:** Holy shit, Omar.

**Ginny:** Omar, you and I need to talk more. How do I not know about dead spots caused by skulls? What body part can I hit that won’t ruin my bat?

**Lawson:** Do NOT answer her, Omar. The last thing G-Rose needs is more encouragement to violence.

**Blip:** You’re really letting him choose your cast?

**Ginny:** I guess so.

**Salvi:** Even after all we’ve been through together, you still went with Livan?

**Ginny:** We haven’t been through anything together.

**Livan:** What do you all think I’m going to do?

**Melky:** Probably something tacky.

**Sonny:** See, if you let me choose, I promise it won’t be tacky, or embarrassing.

**Ginny:** Livan won’t do anything tacky or embarrassing.

**Ginny:** I think.

**Lawson:** Duarte, it MUST be appropriate for thousands of impressionable kids to see.

**Blip:** Thousands? Let’s be more realistic and say dozens. It’s probably not that much, but I’d hate to wound G-Rose’s fragile self-esteem.

**Lawson:** I was taking pity on her because she’s injured.

**Ginny:** And this is why Livan gets to pick my cast.

**Voorhies:** That’s favoritism, G-Rose. That’s not how to be a good teammate.

**Ginny:** You’re preaching about being a good teammate? Wasn’t it you that took Melky’s keys from his locker, drove his brand new car into the outfield, and then hid the keys so he couldn’t move it during practice?

**Melky:** That was Voorhies????

**Voorhies:** Stitches, G-Rose.

**Lawson:** As fun as texted threats are, we need to hit the field.

**Blip:** Say good-bye, G-Rose.

**Ginny:** Oh shut up.

**Salvi:** I don’t even get a good-bye? After all we shared in Cincinatti? I’m crushed.

**Ginny:** We shared an UBER in Cincinnati, you dork.

**Blip:** Good job, you made Salvi cry.

**Ginny:** Fine. Good-bye boys. Try not to embarrass yourselves and for God’s sake, someone make sure the bullpen guys all have their pants zipped. It’s embarrassing.

*pause*

**Livan:** Good call, Mami. The entire team just checked their flies and almost half had to zip.

**Ginny:** LOL

**Ginny to Livan:** Call me

“You’re a lousy teammate, Livan,” Ginny said as soon as she answered her phone.

                There was a moment of quiet before Livan responded. “You had me call just so you could insult me?”

                “No. Well, yes, but not completely. I’m telling you that you screwed up and now the guys are ticked at both of us. Well, mostly you. They still don’t like you.”

                “How could they not like me? I’m the best catcher the Padres organization has ever had,” Livan retorted in a tone of voice that made Ginny grit her teeth.

                “That. That right there is why they don’t like you. You’re an arrogant ass. It’s good to be confident, cocky will be tolerated if you can back it up, but no one likes arrogance,” Ginny warned.

                “Mami, I don’t care if they like me.” His words were carefree but his tone was defensive.

                Ginny softened her tone. “You don’t have to be best friends, but you need to get along with the team. Team chemistry is what wins games and championships. If you’re going to survive being in the majors, you’re going to need more friends than just me. It’s lonely being in the spotlight without friends to help.” It wasn’t until she said the words that she realized she was parroting the advice Trevor had given her. It sucked to admit, even to herself, that he was right about anything.

                Livan chuckled. “So now we’re friends, Mami? My friends aren’t usually so rude.”

                Ginny smiled. “Well then your friends don’t like you much. I’m rude to all of my close friends.”

                “We’re close friends? How close? Close enough that you’ll let me do whatever I want and then help hide the evidence later?” Livan was openly laughing now and Ginny couldn’t help laughing with him.

                “Close enough that I’ll give you a very nice funeral after I bury you for dragging me into trouble.” Livan thought she sounded like she was half asleep.

                He stopped laughing, but Ginny could hear the smile in his voice. “I feel so loved.”

                “You should. I tolerate you more than I do most people.”

                Ginny could hear Lawson’s voice in the background. “I’ve got to go, Mami. _El capitan_ just summoned me,” Livan said, his tone mutinous.

                “Papi, listen to me. Make an effort to be part of the team. You need us. You shouldn’t have rubbed the team’s nose in choosing my cast. I’m not sure if it was part of the pissing contest you and Lawson are having, but I don’t appreciate being brought into it. Promise me you’ll try to get along with them, just for today.” The speech would have been more impressive if she could have avoided a loud yawn at the end of it.

                Livan tsked. “Go to bed, little Rosie. You might be nicer after you wake up.”

                “Don’t call me Rosie, Papi,” Ginny murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

                “Fine. Just this once I’ll let you have your way. Good night Mami,” Livan conceded.

                The only response he received was a soft sigh. Livan shook his head in amusement. Ginny Baker had just fallen asleep while talking to him on the phone. In any other circumstances he’d be offended, but for Ginny he’d make an exception.

                Livan thought about Ginny’s words throughout practice. There might be a little truth in what she said, but it was hard to adjust to being a teammate. For his entire baseball career, it was all about him. Yes, the team was important, but he focused on keeping his stats high, working hard and improving his skills until he could get noticed by sports agents and major league teams. Focusing on himself is what got him out of Cuba. He wasn’t sure he knew how to be part of a team instead of an individual playing with eight other guys.

                In the bottom of the fifth, he was leaning over the dugout fence watching Lawson bat. He glanced at Blip, who stood next to him, and said, “Do you have any suggestions for Ginny’s cast?” He kept his tone casual.

                Livan caught the incredulous look the centerfielder shot him. “Are you asking for my opinion?”

                Livan shrugged. “Maybe.”

                Blip studied him thoughtfully. Just when Livan was sure the man wouldn’t answer Blip surprised him by saying, “Sure, I have suggestions. If you want to annoy her, go with orange. She hates orange. But she’ll be seeking revenge for the entire six weeks she’s in the cast, so you’ll need to consider that.”

                The conversation paused when Lawson hit a long sac fly to right field, advancing Omar from second to third. There were high fives and helmet pats as Lawson came into the dugout, and Livan waited until Lawson began to pull on his catching gear at the far end of the dugout before continuing his conversation. “Well, I have an idea.”

                Blip raised his eyebrow. “I’d like to hear it. Is it going to piss her off?”

                Livan shrugged. “I’m not sure. I was hoping you’d know.”

                Blip grinned. “Oh, I’ll know.”

                What started out as a two man conversation quickly spread when Salvi eavesdropped and offered his opinion. Then Sonny overheard Salvi talk and blabbed to the entire team. The debate continued through the rest of the game, a win for the Padres, and into the clubhouse. On his drive home Livan had to admit, just to himself and never, ever to Ginny, that it felt good to be part of the team, even for one night.


	7. Three men and a lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike has uninvited guests and he can't get them to behave, let alone leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is told from Mike's POV.

The incessant buzzing of his gate call intercom had Mike ready to kill someone. He had been in the kitchen getting another beer when someone pulled into his driveway and buzzed the intercom. In the time it took him to walk from the kitchen to the entry way, the buzzer had been hit an obnoxious amount of times. In fact, it sounded like someone…was that an SOS ring pattern?

                Mike seriously considered ignoring it. He wasn’t expecting anyone and, honestly, if one of his friends was in a mood to ring SOS on his security intercom, he really didn’t have the patience to deal with them. His mood had been steadily getting darker as the day progressed with no word from Baker and right now he was perilously close to driving to the hospital, saying to hell with privacy laws, and walking through the post-op wing until he found Baker.

                He pressed the button on the security panel by the door and pulled up the image of the car in the driveway. There was Livan, his upper body completely out of the back window of a car as he hit the call button repeatedly. If Mike didn’t know better he’d think the Cuban looked panicked.

                “What?” Mike’s voice was anything but welcoming.

                “Let us in, Lawson. Hurry!” Livan was definitely panicking. Mike was going to let him squirm, maybe beg even, until he realized this visit could be about Ginny. He buzzed the car in and tried to suppress the sick feeling rising in his throat. _Don’t jump to conclusions_ he reminded himself. _It could be a stupid prank, or it could be Livan running from a hoard of groupies._ Mike’s hand was on the knob when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror near the door.  Shit. He couldn’t answer the door in just boxers.  Mike scrambled to find the sweatpants he had shucked when he got home from the park. He stuffed his legs in the sweats, pulling them up as he hustled/hopped to the door. He yanked the door open at the same time the doorbell rang, just in time to watch Ginny Baker vomit all over his porch.

                All three men jumped back. Mike and Marsallis avoided being hit, but Livan’s shoes weren’t so lucky. “Shit,” the man muttered in a tone much calmer than the one Mike would have used.

                Marsallis slapped a hand over his mouth and moved to the edge of the patio where he, too, threw up. Duarte shook his head in disgust. “Weak stomach.”  For all his tough words, Mike noticed that the Cuban was careful to keep his eyes on Mike and breathe through his mouth.

                “I’m sorry,” Ginny murmured as she stood and swiped a hand across her mouth. “I’ll clean it up if you get me a bucket.” She took two steps away from the mess, swayed, then dropped to her knees.

                Both Livan and Mike rushed towards Ginny, but Marsallis beat them. It wasn’t natural for a guy that big to move so fast, Mike thought uncharitably. One moment the guy was hanging over the edge of the patio and the next he was scooping Ginny up in his arms. Maybe it was the guy’s freakishly long legs; he probably crossed the patio in two steps.  Mike scowled at the Tongan holding Ginny’s limp form. For no logical reason whatsoever, he was feeling possessive of his rookie and didn’t like this stranger touching her. A quick glance at Duarte found him glaring, too.  Maybe it was childish or they were both cavemen, but damn it, Baker was a Padre and they should be the only ones helping her. No, Mike admitted to himself, only he should be the one to help her.

                “Where do you want her,” Marsallis asked. Without waiting for a response he moved towards the open door.

                “Somewhere without carpet,” Livan suggested helpfully.

                Mike stopped in his entry way and looked at his fully carpeted main floor. “So that leaves us with the kitchen, bathrooms, and pool deck.”

                The men looked at each other. “We could put pillows and blankets in the bathroom so she doesn’t have to move when she gets sick,” Livan suggested hesitantly. “It’s what my _abuela_ did when I was young.”

                “Not sure she’d want to sleep on a guy’s bathroom floor,” Marsallis warned. “When was the last time it was cleaned?”

                Lawson glared at him. “My housekeeper was in today.”

                Livan raised his eyebrows at Marsallis. “You got aiming problems? Is that why you immediately worried about the floor?”

                The big man’s ears turned red. “I’ve got a mom who had six sons. I can still hear her rants,” he explained.  Mike grimaced in sympathy, more for the mom than her sons.

                After a silent debate Mike said, “We could put her out on the pool deck. The loungers can lay flat and have soft cushions that can be sprayed clean.”

                “You’d put her outside like a dog,” Marsallis asked in disbelief.

                “It’s 78 degrees out with no bugs and I have a huge security fence that even the paps can’t penetrate. Besides, one of us will be with her and she can come in anytime she feels like it,” Mike defended. Although now that he actually said the words out loud it didn’t sound nearly as good of a plan as it had in his head.

                “Is that what you do with all your drunken groupies,” Livan asked with his obnoxious smirk on full display. “You put them outside?”

                Mike’s blood pressure spiked even as he tried to hold onto his temper. “Given that I’ve never had drunken groupies, I’m going to have to defer to your experience with them,” he taunted. It wasn’t appropriate behavior for a captain, but damn it, Mike wasn’t going to be insulted in his own home, especially by a little punk who hadn’t been invited. He was smugly satisfied when Duarte bristled.

                “Stop,” Marsallis snapped and Mike reluctantly broke his staring contest with Livan. “We still haven’t made a decision and she’s getting heavy.”

                Livan moved towards the big man. “Here, I’ll take her.”

                “My ass, you’ll take her,” Marsallis retorted.  “You and Mike will end up in a tug of war contest with her if I let her go.”

                Mike felt a twinge of shame at the accuracy of the words. It was time to start acting like the mature adult he was. Occasionally.

                “We’ll put her in a guest room,” he decided, reluctantly resigning himself to the likelihood of having to replace the mattress on the bed. He moved to the stairs and felt the two men follow, Livan now shoeless. It nearly killed Mike, but he managed to take the stairs without any indication of how badly his knees were hurting. Given that some days he couldn’t even make it up the stairs, he considered it a major victory.

                “Do you have any tarps,” Marsallis asked as they entered the chosen guest room.

                Mike shot the man a look. “You object to letting her rest outside on a soft mattress, but you’re okay to put her on an uncomfortable plastic tarp?” He didn’t even try to hide his sarcasm.

                “Marsallis has a good point,” Livan chimed in. “It would be a shame to ruin a nice bed.” When Mike stared at him in surprise, Livan shrugged. “Beds are expensive, Lawson. You need to take care of your things so they last.”

                Against his will, Mike felt a spark of empathy with the young catcher. There were many days in his youth where he desperately wanted a soft bed of his own. He had a feeling that Livan had experienced that same feeling for much longer than he had.

                Ginny moaned softly, startling all three men. “I think I’m going to get sick,” she murmured, her husky voice a result of intubation. The three men instantly sprang into action. Marsallis rushed towards the bathroom, Mike hot on his heels. Livan backpedaled from the room, shouting something about finding a tarp as he escaped.

                Ten minutes later, all three men stood over the tarp covered bed, staring at a sleeping Ginny. “It was a good idea to put the sheet over the tarp,” Livan conceded. Mike nodded in acknowledgement of the compliment. He would have gloated, just a little, if he wasn’t so worried about his rookie.

                “Maybe we should take her to the hospital,” he suggested.

                Livan raised one eyebrow. “We just came from the hospital, Lawson. They sent her home.”

                Mike focused on Livan, suspicion suddenly rising. “So how did she end up here? This isn’t on the way to the Omni.”

                Livan and Marsallis shared a look. “You were closest to the hospital,” Livan answered. His voice was confident, but his expression was tuned to nervous. His eyebrows pulled down and he bit his lower lip. Mike would have laughed if he wasn’t convinced that the men’s explanation wasn’t going to make him happy.

                “No, there are several guys closer than me. Blip is the closest.”

                Livan shrugged but offered no further explanation. Mike turned his gaze to Marsallis. “Well?”

                The man blew out a breath. “This was the closest house when Ginny said she felt sick. Well, the closest house that we knew the address to,” he amended.

                Mike scowled. “How did you know my address?”

                Marsallis pointed at Livan and Mike turned his scowl on the Cuban. The obnoxious smirk was back, all traces of nervousness gone. “We seem to have a groupie in common. Gina mentioned your house and it’s not hard to find the only glass house in San Diego.”

                Mike’s eyebrows nearly flew off his face. “Why were you talking about me with your one night stand?”

                To Mike’s astonishment, Livan blushed. “No reason.”

                Marsallis let out a booming laugh. “No one buys that, _amigo._ Try again.”

                “Why,” Mike prodded.

                “Enough,” Livan snapped, his hand slashing through the air. “The point is this was the closest house that I had the address for. Marsallis didn’t want her to get sick in his car, and the McDonald’s wasn’t sitting well with her.”

                There wasn’t much that could shock him anymore, but this made his jaw drop. “You gave her greasy food after surgery? Are you really that stupid?”

                Both men bristled. “She said she was hungry because she hadn’t eaten all day,” Livan defended.

                “I always eat right after surgery,” Marsallis argued, his words rushing to follow Livan’s.

                Mike scoffed at both of the idiots. “What would you know about surgery,” he retorted. He immediately regretted his words. Marsallis drew himself up to his full six feet seven inches and glared down at Mike. “I play rugby. I’ve had more surgeries and broken bones than your entire baseball team put together.” Mike had to fight the urge to take a step back, reminding himself that he couldn’t be intimidated. Not retreating from the big man’s anger took more self-control that he was willing to admit to. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Livan take a quick step back and he smirked to himself at the rookie’s retreat.

                “You know what? I don’t care anymore.” He paused to glare at Livan. “Except to figure out why you were talking about me with Gina. Which Gina was it,” he asked, momentarily distracted.

                “Gina M.”

                Mike thought for a moment, trying to place the name with a face. After a moment, it clicked. “Oh,” he muttered, more than happy to drop the subject now that he remembered Gina and her predilections.

                “She’s going to sleep a while longer,” Marsallis said into the awkward silence. “They loaded her up with pain meds, muscle relaxants, and anti-nausea drugs.”

                Mike nodded at the information. Once again, silence filled the room as the men stared at the bed.

                “Well, as fun as this has been, you guys can go. I’ll take care of her,” Mike finally said.

                Immediate objections followed his statement, irritating Mike until his temper reached boiling. “You aren’t needed. Get out,” he ordered harshly.

                “Not needed,” Marsallis repeated, stunned. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

                “I’ve got this,” Mike snapped back.

                “Oh, hell no. If you think I’m gonna let you change her clothes, you are sadly mistaken,” the big man retorted sharply. “I’ll do it.”

 _“No maldito camino, amigo,”_ Livan shouted, taking the other two by surprise. “ _Debes estar loco!”_

“Guys,” Mike snapped but to his amazement both men ignored him. It was something that hadn’t happened to him in years, and it seriously pissed him off.

                “Yes fucking way, _amigo_! And _you_ are the crazy one if you think she would want to stay in those nasty clothes. Or maybe you’d rather strip her yourself? Maybe get a good look while she can’t punch you?” Marsallis’s tone was nasty, every bit as insulting and antagonistic as his words. Mike found himself insulted on Livan’s behalf, a situation he would never, ever have guessed he’d find himself in.

                Sure enough, Livan stepped forward with his arm already cocked back to punch the Tongan. Mike grabbed Livan’s arm and held tight. “Enough,” he shouted, pulling hard at the hothead’s arm.

                Livan had the nerve to struggle against the restraint. Mike stepped in front of Livan and shoved him hard. It surprised the Cuban enough that it rocked him back a few steps.             

               “Stop and think, Duarte. Punching someone with your throwing hand, even _thinking_ about punching someone with your throwing hand is against your contract. If the Padres find out about it, you’re in violation of you contract. You know what that means? No money. No job. No visa.” Livan jerked away from him, but didn’t make another move towards Marsallis. One moron down, one to go.

                Mike turned to glare at the big man. “I bet it’s against your contract, too. National teams don’t appreciate their players causing international incidents. No money, no visa, no representing your country.” Marsallis crossed his arms but didn’t disagree.

                Now that the threat of violence between the two men was over, Mike was ready to cause some of his own. Wasn’t it enough that he had to babysit grown men in the clubhouse every day? He got stuck with the upstart rookie that seemed to think everything should be given to him and, to add salt to the wound, he was supposed to mentor the little shit so he could one day take Mike’s job. It was bad enough having to tolerate it in the clubhouse, but now here he was, in his own home and on his own time, babysitting the self-centered brat and a man the size of a mountain with an equally large protective streak.

                “What would possibly make you think that we would allow you to even touch Baker,” he asked, sounding remarkably calm, even to his own ears. Man, sometimes he impressed even himself with his self-control.

                A small smile unexpectedly appeared on Marsallis’ face. “Because I’m a gay man in a long term committed relationship and _I_ ,” he paused to stare hard, first at Mike, then at Livan, “have no sexual interest in seeing her naked.”

                Damn the man for raising a good point. “So what we’re really trying to decide is what will make Baker the least angry with us.” Marsallis huffed out a laugh and even Livan chuckled in agreement.  “The options are to leave her clothes alone,” Mike paused as both men objected, “have Marsallis change her shirt while she’s still unconscious and can’t kill us,” Livan objected to this, “load her back in Marsallis’ car and dump her at the Omni,” Mike paused but there was no immediate rejection of this suggestion, “or I change her into my shirt, you both go home and we’ll all deal with the fallout in the morning.” Both men objected strenuously to the last option.

                Mike huffed in disgust. “What do I have to do to get you two out of my house? And for the record, I don’t want to see her naked.” And because he was a master, he managed to say that with a straight face.

                “You liar,” Ginny rasped from the bed. All three men spun to face the bed and tried not to fidget like naughty children.

                “How are you feeling, Mami?”

                “Amused.”

                “So, how much did you hear,” Mike asked casually.

                “I heard you lie about not wanting to see me naked,” she rasped.

                Both Livan and Marsallis turned to glare at him. Mike rubbed the back of his neck to hide his rising blush. “Baker, you’re hallucinating. I’ve never…,” he began.

                “I saw you peeking through the curtains at the photo shoot, Lawson,” Ginny teased.

                Mike grinned in relief. “You’re confused, Baker. It was you that got caught peeking through the curtains at me.”

                Her laugh sounded raspy, but it was still that horsey laugh that was all her own. “I was not looking at you, old man. I was looking at the rest of my manly teammates. You were just blocking my line of sight.”

                “The team took naked pictures together,” Livan asked, his confusion evident.

                “It’s a Padre tradition,” Mike informed him, straight-faced. “A couple of times a season we all get together for a naked group photo. It’s a great team building exercise, promotes trust. You missed the last one but you’ll be in the one next month.”

                Livan looked decidedly queasy and Mike had to bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep from laughing.

                “I don’t know why you’re nervous Livan,” Ginny said around a yawn. “You walk around the clubhouse naked all the time. Everyone’s seen what you have to offer.”

                Livan blinked in surprise before suddenly grinning, his dimples on display. “Mami, have you been trying to see me naked?”

                Ginny rolled her eyes. “No, I’ve been trying to _avoid_ seeing you naked. You have no shame, Papi.”

                Marsallis spoke up. “Who knew that The Ginny Baker was a peeping Tom? Is there anyone you haven’t seen naked?”

                Ginny frowned at him. “Since when does my name have a THE in front of it? And yes, there are many of the guys I haven’t seen naked. I’ve worked very hard to keep it that way.”

                Both Livan and Mike snorted at that. “Sure you have,” Marsallis teased.

                Ginny let out another huge yawn and Mike decided to take charge before she fell asleep again. “Baker, you’ll probably want to change out of your clothes before you go back to sleep.”

                He nearly smiled as watched her rub at her eyes like a sleepy child. “Why? I can change at my place.”

                Mike braced himself for a fight. Telling Baker what to do never went well. He glanced at the other two men, but the cowards were more than willing to let Mike catch the brunt of her anger. “You’ll be staying here tonight, where I…,” he had to stop as both Livan and Marsallis vehemently objected. Giving in with an aggrieved sigh, Mike corrected, “I mean, we, will be here just in case you need help.”

                With another yawn, Baker gave a one armed shrug. “Fine. Why did you leave me in a disgusting shirt? You should have given me a clean one,” she sleepily chided.

                Mike was shocked into silence. A quick glance at the men showed Livan with his mouth hanging open and Marsallis blinking his eyes rapidly in surprise. “You would have killed one of us for trying to help you change your shirt,” he finally choked out.

                She let out a breathy laugh even as her eyes closed. “I’m wearing a sports bra, you idiots. Unless you planned to be creepers about it, there’s really nothing to see. And while I am about 60% sure you and Livan would behave yourselves, I’m 100% sure Marsallis would ensure you did.”

                “Rookie,” he began as Livan sputtered in outrage.

                “Why is there a trash bag on my arm,” she asked suddenly, her voice a sleepy murmur. “Did something go wrong? Did they need to hide my arm?”

                Mike smiled faintly, a warm feeling settling in his chest. Sleepy Ginny was adorable. “No Baker, everything went great. Livan didn’t want you to get sick on his cast.”

                There was no response from Baker. The three men studied her for a minute. “You know, this is the second time she’s fallen asleep in front of us,” Livan pointed out. There was no need for him to remind Mike about how vehement Ginny was about not fully relaxing around her teammates.

                “Well, she does trust us 60%,” Mike responded.

                “No, she trusts you two 60%,” Marsallis corrected. “I’m the one she really trusts.”

                Livan shrugged. “Lawson, grab a shirt for Ginny. Make sure I can fit it over her cast.”

                “Not gonna happen,” Mike retorted.

                “You heard her, she trusts me to get her out of that shirt,” Livan said with that damn smirk that made Mike want to deck him.

                Mike shook his head in exasperation. The punk didn’t know when to quit. Marsallis gave a quick wink to Mike. “Don’t worry, if he even breaths wrong, I’ll crush him and we can use the tarp to dump his body at sea.”

                The alarmed expression on Livan’s face did a lot to cheer Mike up as he left in search of a shirt for Ginny. Surely seeing her wearing Mike’s shirt would annoy Livan and suddenly Mike was feeling a little better about his unwelcome guests. Of course he’d help his rookie. He was glad she was here instead of by herself in her hotel room. But it made it a lot better knowing that he could torment Livan at his leisure. His house, his rules and he didn’t feel like being the captain doing the mature adult thing. He smiled as he grabbed one of his old jerseys from his closet, already picturing Duarte’s outrage. Yeah, this might not be so bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you all how much your comments mean to me! You are all amazing.


	8. A work of art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny's famous cast

“Hold still little Rosie, I’m almost done.”

                Ginny opened her eyes, the movement much harder than it should have been. “Livan? Why are you holding my hand?”

                Livan didn’t look up from where he was hunched over her cast. “You keep moving Mami, and it’s going to ruin my artwork. I’m about ready to sit on you if you don’t let me finish.” He was studying the inside of her arm, and had her shoulder at nearly a 90 degree angle from her body. It didn’t hurt, but Ginny couldn’t help but hope she shaved her armpits before surgery.

                “Can I see?”

                If anything Livan hunched his shoulders more, as if protecting the cast from her gaze. “No. Go back to sleep.”

                Ginny began to tell him what she thought of his orders, but a yawn got in her way. Her eyes closed of their own volition, although surely it was just for a second or two before Livan shook her awake. “Mami, wake up. You can look now.”

                Ginny smiled sleepily at the catcher. He looked so excited, like a kid at Christmas. “I’m awake,” she giggled. Wait, since when did she giggle? How much medicine was she on that she was becoming a giggler?

                Livan snapped his fingers in front of her face, bringing her back to the present. “Do you want to see or not?”

                Ginny tried to push herself upright, but struggled in the soft bed. With a shake of his head, Livan reached an arm behind her back and helped her upright. But then he had to keep it there because the sudden motion made her head spin. Ginny needed to rest her head against his shoulder and close her eyes for just a moment, her attention focused on calming her churning stomach.

                “Mami, do you need to lie down again? You can go back to sleep, I’ll be here,” Livan murmured.

                Ginny took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes. The room slowly righted itself and her stomach settled into general uneasiness, but with no imminent danger. “No, I want to see,” she told him, slowly straightening away from him. Livan kept his arm around her back until he was certain she was steady.

                Livan had covered her cast with a pillow case and, with a smile, he gave the pillow case a tug, pulling it down her arm and exposing her cast. It was a move right off of The Price Is Right. “Ta da,” he said with a flourish.

                Ginny gaped at her cast, speechless. She slowly rotated her arm back and forth, trying to take it all in. The silence filled the room until Livan began to fidget.

                “What do you think,” he asked. For the first time since she’d met him, the cocky catcher sounded nervous.

                Ginny met his eyes, hers wide with shock. “It’s absolutely beautiful. You’re truly an artist, Livan.”

                Livan let out a deep breath and if it was anyone else, Ginny would have thought it a sigh of relief. His smirk reappeared, showing off his dimples.

                “This is a phoenix,” he explained, his finger running down the outside of her cast as he traced the mythical bird. He had drawn it with shades of red and orange that were so vivid it looked as if the bird was simply resting her arm. He had drawn it in flight, its head stretched towards the top of the cast and its wings spread out to wrap around her bicep. The svelte body ended just below her elbow but the tail continued to flow down her forearm, wrapping around her wrist like a bracelet before ending on the cast’s edge at her knuckles.

                “Why a phoenix,” she asked when she could finally form words. His artwork had truly taken her breath away.

                Livan gave a casual shrug but a slight blush heated his cheeks. “At home in Cuba, I read the Harry Potter series over and over again. One of my favorite things was Fawkes, the phoenix that would burst into flames but then rise again from the ashes, beautiful and strong.” He gave a self-conscious shrug. “It seemed appropriate.”         

                Now it was Ginny’s turn to blush. “Well, it’s beautiful. Thank you.”

                Livan gave her a wink. “You’re lucky I like you, little Rosie. Think of all the things I could have drawn if I didn’t.”

                Ginny reached forward to give him a shove but lost her precarious balance and nearly went head first off the bed. Livan caught her around the waist and kept her upright. “Maybe you better lie down,” he told her.

                “No, I want to see the rest of the cast.” Down the inside of her bicep was a beautiful rose with unfurled petals and tiny, detailed thorns. When she asked why, Livan gave her a look like maybe she was slow on the uptake and said, “because you’re little Rosie.” It was so cute that Ginny only gave him a half-hearted punch to his muscled shoulder.

                It really was a work of art, she decided as she studied every inch of the cast. He had designed the cast to look like a full sleeve tattoo, one that is designed to cover the person’s arm from the shoulder to the wrist. The centerpiece was the phoenix of course, with the rose on her inner arm, and a sketch of Petco Park the secondary pieces. Tying them it all together was a background of various shades of blues and purples. Ginny leaned in a little closer to look at the detail. “Is that a Yorkie or am I so drugged I’m seeing things?”

                Livan grinned. “That is a Yorkie. I graciously agreed to put hidden pictures in your cast. What? I’m a nice guy,” he defended when she made scoffing sounds. “Anyways. Each guy picked a name out of a hat and then chose what symbol would represent the chosen player. No one knows what symbol belongs to anyone else, so they’ll have to try to find and identify which is theirs.”

                “Which player did you design,” Ginny asked.

                “Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it,” was Livan’s vague response.               

                And that’s how Ginny ended up standing in front of the bathroom mirror, her reflection showed her with wild hair and a too-large throwback Mike Lawson jersey. Livan was holding her up with an arm around her waist while she searched for the hidden picture. Livan knew she found it when she started laughing until she was doubled over trying to contain her mirth. She mentioned Mike’s jersey only once and nearly had her head bitten off. Now she knew why Lawson’s symbol had been changed to a bearded dick.

                                **********************************************************

  
                Two weeks later, Ginny was in the dugout glaring at the now-mandatory navy sling hiding her cast. The first week following surgery all the networks were showing clips of various Padres leaning over her to peer at her cast while she sat in the dugout, the only player really paying attention to the game. Apparently the internet had blown up and there were now memes of every person on her team (even Al!) puzzling over her cast. Eliot had actually created a Facebook page and Pintrest board, as well as Instagram and Twitter accounts on behalf of her cast. The team’s favorite picture, and coincidentally her least favorite one, showed Salvi sitting next to her, holding her arm above her head so he could see the underside of the cast. It looked like he was staring at her armpit. After three days of distraction in the dugout, Ginny had been banished to the bullpen. That night, the relievers, bullpen catcher, and even bullpen coach missed Al’s signal to warm up a righty, all because they were staring at her rose, trying to decide if that was indeed a drawing of Fenway, or just an accidental plop of green.  The internet and sports shows had _loved_ that. Al, Charlie, and Oscar not so much. So now she was stuck in an ugly sling for the duration of the game, all because Livan had made her cast into a Where’s Waldo puzzle and her teammates had the attention span of four-year-olds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are beneficial to my writing speed. :-D


	9. The best of enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike and Livan bring out the worst in each other, but still find time to take care of Ginny anyways.

                “Why is your phone quacking?”

                Mike let out a sigh. “Because I accidentally left my phone unlocked and Baker changed every single setting she could find. I’m still trying to figure out how to undo some of them.”

                “Okay, but why is your phone quacking?”

                Mike shook his head at Livan, once again remembering what a pain in the ass the kid was. “Because apparently she set that sound as my alarm tone.”

                “So why is your alarm going off?”

                Mike waved an arm in Livan’s general direction and shot a look at Marsallis. “See what I have to put up with?” Marsallis laughed, but offered no help. “I set the alarm so I could get Baker back on her pain med schedule,” Mike explained, not even pretending to be patient.

                Livan nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good idea. I mean, I can remember it no problem, but I hear that older people start to lose their memory quickly.”

                Mike pushed out of his chair, quickly coughing to hide the painful cracking in his back. “Alright Marsallis, we’ll do it your way. You go grab the tarp from Baker’s room. I’ll get the duck tape and bungee cords from the garage. I already know a great place to dump bodies, but we’ll have to use your car. My trunk isn’t big enough to hold his weight.”

                Marsallis pushed off the sofa and stretched, his arms seeming to reach to the ten foot ceiling. “Always double wrap bodies. You don’t want any fluid to get on your car.”

                Mike ignored the way Livan’s eyes widened and how the young catcher straightened from his slouch on the sofa. “No problem, I’ve got another tarp in the pool house.”

                Livan’s eyes flicked back and forth between the other two men. His expression was mostly suspicious with a little nervousness thrown in the mix. “How can you joke about murder so easily?”

                Mike looked at his backup with a serious expression. “Who said I was joking?” His tone was so matter-of-fact that Livan’s eyes widened a little more. Out of the corner of his eye Mike saw Marsallis turn away from Livan. The big man was biting his lip to contain his amusement, but his gigantic shoulders began to shake with suppressed laughter. Mike made it half way up the stairs before Marsallis lost the battle. His booming laughter followed Mike into Ginny’s bedroom.

                He closed the door behind him so the two buffoons in his living room couldn’t disturb her sleep. He smiled at the sight of her wearing his jersey. Livan had been beyond annoyed when he had to help Ginny into it. It was a great feeling to be able to sink to the punk’s level. He may turn the captainship over to Blip just to have free reign on tormenting the man.

                The newly revealed cast caught Mike’s attention as he sank down to sit on the bed next to Baker’s hip. It was lucky he was alone because if Livan had seen his reaction to the cast, he would have been unbearably smug for the rest of his time with the Padres. Mike studied it carefully, futiley trying to find flaws in the artwork. After a few minutes, he could begrudgingly admit that Livan was a gifted artist. The cast was amazingly well done, especially considering it was drawn on plaster.

                A soft noise drew his attention from the cast to Ginny. She was still sleeping soundly, but her head tossed back and forth on the pillow. Suddenly she tried to turn towards Mike, which put her body weight onto her broken arm. Her muted cry of pain had Mike rolling her back to a supine position. She moved restlessly against the sheets, a moan escaping her when she tried to lift her arm.

                “Hold on, Baker. I’m getting your meds now. Stay still.” It took him less than a minute to get her pills sorted and retrieve a cup of water from the bathroom tap, yet when he got back there were tears silently sliding down her cheeks. It nearly broke his heart. He took a minute to study her before resuming his seat on the bed next to her. He carefully brushed away her tears before he woke her because she wouldn’t want anyone to see her this vulnerable, even when she was only twelve hours removed from surgery.

                “Rookie, wake up. It’s time to take your meds.” He had to repeat himself several times before she opened her eyes and blinked at him in confusion.

                “Why are you watching me sleep? That’s creepy,” she murmured.

                That brought a smile to his face. “I have much better things to do than watch you sleep Baker.”

                “So go do them and leave me alone.”

                “I plan to, as soon as you take your pain meds.”

                “No,” she grumped. “I don’t want to.”

                Mike manfully maintained his composure when all he wanted to do was laugh at her pouty expression. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to, rookie. I’m telling you that you’re taking your meds.”

                Ginny tried to fold her arms across her chest, only to gasp in pain at the sudden movement of her arm. “I can’t take them without food. I don’t want to get sick,” she admitted.

                Mike debated a moment. “Fine. Stay here and for God’s sake don’t move. I’ll be back with some food.” Instead of the snarky comeback that he was expecting she obediently nodded. While he watched, her eyes closed and from one breath to the next she fell asleep.

Mike shook his head fondly as he moved slowly down the stairs. It was much easier on his knees to go down stairs instead of up them, but by the end of a six month long season stairs were hell no matter which direction he was going.

                He turned the corner into the kitchen and froze. Marsallis stood at the island with one hand inside a bag of chips and the other hand holding a sandwich that had to have been six inches thick, stuffed with what was likely all the deli meat and cheese he had in his fridge. The big man looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t talk around the huge bite of sandwich he had just taken.

                Livan’s entire upper body was buried in the fridge. Mike could hear bottles clanking and drawers being open and closed as his backup rummaged through Mike’s food. “How does he eat this crap,” Mike could hear him mutter. “And who actually drinks this kind of beer?”

                Mike had heard enough. “”Get out of my fridge,” he barked. He took great pleasure in watching Livan jump in surprise, smacking his head on the light fixture in the fridge. Livan backed out of the fridge, and swung around to face Mike. He had bottles of beer in each hand and waved them at Mike. “How can you drink this? Heineken tastes like stale water and Guinness is so thick you have to chew it.” He shook his head. “And who eats that much avocado? Don’t you know that it’s fattening? It’s not healthy for someone your age to eat like that.”

                Mike didn’t say a word, just crossed his arms and glared at the Cuban. Livan shrugged, uncaring that Mike was angry. “And you need more spinach. And meat. Oh, and cheese. Marsallis ate them all. And why don’t you have pizza?”

                Mike thought the top of his head was going to explode. “You do not get to come into my house, raid my kitchen, and then bitch about all of the food you ate. Get out.” Whether it was his tone of voice or his expression, Livan finally figured out how close Mike was to killing him. He lowered the beer bottles he was waving around. “Well, you do have good taste in tequila,” he offered.

                Mike took a step towards the man and Marsallis quickly stepped between them. “How about we order pizza?”

                Livan chimed in from behind the relative safety of Marsallis. “We could watch Ginny while you run to the grocery store,” he offered.

                “That’s it,” Mike growled, stepping to move around Marsallis so he could choke the life out of Livan.

                The big man sidestepped to keep himself between the two. “How about Livan and I go get groceries,” he offered.

                “No good, _amigo_ ,” came the immediate response from behind his back. “If we leave he’ll never let us back in.”

                When Marsallis raised an eyebrow, Mike shrugged. Livan was right; the minute they left the house they were permanently gone.

                “How about this? We order food and have it delivered. I don’t think they deliver alcohol though,” Marsallis said. Even the easy-going Tongan looked like he was beginning to lose his patience.

                “No worries,” Livan responded immediately. “I’ll take care of the liquor.”

                While Mike made toast and chicken noodle soup for Ginny, Marsallis called and ordered delivery for Chinese food, pizza and wings, Mexican (but cancelled that order when Livan was outraged at what was considered “authentic”), Thai, and burgers. From the next room, Mike could hear Livan talking in rapid fire Spanish to someone on the phone. He caught words like “juices”, “tamales” and “rum”, but his Spanish wasn’t good enough to keep up with Livan’s quiet conversation. He left the men with strict orders to allow no one inside the gate, even to deliver the food, and headed back upstairs with Ginny’s meal.

                Of course she wasn’t in the bed. He set the food down on the night stand and quickly circled around the bed in case she had fallen. “Baker?”

                He heard the water running in the bathroom. With a shake of his head he walked over and tapped on the door. “You all right in there?” He waited a minute for a response, then knocked harder. “Baker?” When she still didn’t response, he tried to turn the door handle. When he found it locked he wiggled the handle several times.

                The water shut off and the door was yanked open. “What,” she yelled as loud as her raw throat would allow, which frankly wasn’t loud at all.

                “Why are you out of bed,” he demanded. “You should have waited until I could have helped you.”

                When she just raised her eyebrows and stared at him, Mike belatedly realized why she hadn’t waited for him. “You could have fallen,” he muttered, trying to cover his embarrassment.

                Ginny moved around him and slowly made her way back to bed. Mike wrapped his arm around her waist to steady her and got an elbow to the ribs for his troubles. “You’ve got bony elbows, Baker.”

                “I hope you don’t mind, but I used the spare toothbrush in the bathroom.”

                Mike rubbed the back of his neck in chagrin. “Baker, you just used my toothbrush.”

                She froze in the act of sitting on the bed. “It is not. This isn’t your bedroom.” She paused to look around. “I don’t think it’s your bedroom,” she mused to herself. “No, it can’t be,” she asserted to Mike. “Your room is going to be crammed full of posters and magazine covers of yourself. You’re too narcissistic to have bare walls.” She plopped down to sit cross-legged on the bed.

                “I’m remodeling my master bathroom,” he told her as he handed her the plate of toast. “I’ve been using this bathroom.”

                Ginny took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Well, we’ve probably shared spit before and we’ve survived, so it’s not a big deal.”

                Mike stood over her, forcing her to tip her head up to face him. “We’ve shared spit? Really? You would think I’d remember that, Baker. I thought that we agreed _not_ to share spit.”

                She went still and could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she carefully chose her response. Finally she shrugged. “The team shares water bottles, food, and everything else that comes with spending sixteen hours a day with a person. I can guarantee you’ve shared germs with all of the guys.”

                Mike grimaced. “That’s disgusting.”

                “Fine, you big baby. I’ll buy you a new toothbrush. In fact, I’ll buy you two, just in case you ever have need of a spare. That way your next groupie will be covered. You’ll have to buy the rest of them because I refuse to spend my minuscule rookie salary on your groupie habit.” She put a big piece of toast in her mouth and chewed self-righteously. That shouldn’t even be possible, but she pulled it off.

                Mike groaned and flopped down on the bed beside her. “You’re such a brat. I do not have a groupie habit.” He smirked when Ginny tried to answer him around her mouth full of food. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. Geez, didn’t anyone teach you manners?”

                She glared at him until she could safely swallow her food. “Your reputation precedes you, old man. I believe you had a policy where every away game involved a different girl? So 162 games divided by two is…”

                “Enough,” Mike growled, suddenly not amused. “I don’t have a different woman every night.”

                She smiled, pleased that she got a reaction from him. “Sure you don’t. I can remember a night in Atlanta when you were with the same woman two nights in a row.”

                “This is the thanks I get for letting you stay in my house? Never again, Baker.” He rolled across the bed until he could reach her pill bottles. He measured out the correct amount and handed them back to her with the bottle of water he brought. She grinned at him but wisely held her silence.

                The sound of the front door slamming echoed through the house. Mike covered his face with his hands. “I have to go see what your boys are up to now.” He lowered his hands to scowl at her. “You couldn’t have picked someone normal to help you. Not Blip or Salvi or Rhonda. Oh no, you had to pick Livan and now _I’m_ stuck with him.”

                Ginny smiled as she settled back onto a pillow. “You are sadly mistaken if you believe Salvi is normal.”

                Mike laughed in agreement as he pushed off the bed. “Go back to sleep, Baker. I’ll check on you later.”

                “I don’t need to be checked on. I’m a big girl Mike.”

                Mike didn’t bother to respond to that nonsense.

*******************************************************************

Six hours later Mike blurrily blinked at the alarm going off on his phone. Why the hell had he set his alarm for 5:30 in the morning? He tried to think through the cotton in head. There was something important about that alarm.

He looked around the room and snip-its of the night came back to him. It took three extra-large pizzas, two dozen hot wings, more General Tso’s chicken than he ever wanted to see again, some sort of Thai dish that he can’t remember much about, a few burgers, and nearly two dozen of Livan’s homemade tamales (damn that boy for being a good cook) before the men admitted defeat, unable to eat anything more without exploding. Of course, they had to wash all that food down, so they used both bottles of rum to make Livan’s sweet-but-still-manly drink. Then when that was gone, Mike used his bottle of good tequila to make his famous secret ingredient margaritas, mixing all sorts of ingredients and forcing the other two to guess what was in it.

                Of course the whole evening was just another way for Livan and Mike to try and one up each other. Marsallis had just been along for the ride, enjoying himself watching the caloric pissing contest, only stepping in when things got a little too tense. After Marsallis realized that Mike’s satellite tv could get almost every station known to mankind, he took possession of the remote and turned on rugby. He tried to explain the rules to Mike and Livan but by that point in the night his words were too slurred to be understandable, which was fine because Mike and Livan were too drunk to understand anyways.

                Mike surveyed the ruins of his living room and smiled to himself.  It nearly killed him, but he could claim victory. He out-ate and, more importantly, out-drank the much larger Marsallis and, God he hated to think this, the much younger Livan. And as soon as he could move without throwing up he’d kick both of the guys out of his house after razzing them about being light-weights.  _Yup_ , he thought groggily, _I’ve still got it._

                *************************************************************************

 

                Ginny quietly crept down the stairs, her meds in one hand and Mike’s jersey hanging loose on her frame. The pain in her arm woke her up, but none of the men were around (so much for taking care of her), so she decided to grab something to eat on her way out of the house.

                The sight that greeted her in the living room was so stunning she pulled out her cell and started snapping pictures. Mike was slumped sideways in his chair, his head tipped back and mouth open so his snores were easily heard. He had one leg thrown over the arm rest and the other propped up on the coffee table in front of him.

                For some unknown reason Livan was lying on his back, half on and half off the sofa. One arm and leg flopped onto the floor and his head hung backwards off the sofa. Somehow he maintained his balance by having the other leg flung over the back of the sofa as a counterweight and his arm was lost somewhere in the crack between the cushions.

                Poor Marsallis must have fallen out of his chair because he was face down on the floor, one arm thrown wide while the other was curled so the man could rest his forehead on his meaty forearm. He muttered something in his sleep about disgusting beer margaritas before settling back into sleep.

                For good measure, she took the time to record a video of the sleeping men and the mess that was the previously pristine living room. The she grabbed a banana and bagel from the kitchen and snuck out the door to meet her Uber.

 

 **Ginny to Padres’ group text:** Please excuse Mike and Livan from work today. Their slumber party lasted much longer than they anticipated. Kindly accept these pictures as proof of their need for a day off. Sincerely, Ginny


	10. The Great Flower Plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike Lawson thinks he's funny and it all snowballs from there.

                Mike had claimed one of the conference rooms near the clubhouse as ground zero for his latest prank. Ginny Baker had challenged him and no one, not even the first female baseball player in the MLB, was going to get away with that. So he roped in Salvi, who was always good with pranks, and Evers, who was bad with pranks but good at keeping things from going too far, and sat them at the table with strict instructions about their role in the plot. He tried to catch up with Blip to tell him, but the man must have used his Yoda powers because he always managed to vanish just before Mike got there.

                While he had no way of knowing for sure, Mike was willing to bet his house that the Padres organization was going to be swamped with get well wishes for Ginny as soon as her surgery date was announced. While diehard fans would send cards or letters when their favorite player was injured, he anticipated Baker getting a bigger response than a few dozen cards. And if he was right, if she received gifts, he knew exactly what he was going to do with them.

                Sure enough, the gifts started pouring in as soon as it was announced that Ginny Baker was having surgery the following day. Suddenly the stadium was a flurry of activity. Letter carriers, along with UPS and Fed Ex drivers were showing up with cases of letters and packages. The stadium operations manager had to empty out dozens of cases of beer from an industrial sized refrigerator just to hold all the cakes, candies, and pastries that were constantly being delivered from bakeries around San Diego. (And because the team was filled with great guys who would do anything to help a teammate, they all willingly took the beer back to the clubhouse to drink. You know, just so Baker’s food could have more space in the beer fridge.) Couriers started to arrive with very expensive gifts from the rich and famous. And then came the flowers, lots and lots of flowers. So many flowers that it smelled like someone spilled a perfume factory all over Petco Park.

                When it first started Mike sent the batboys, clubbies and rookies to get the packages and letters from the delivery dock and bring them back to the clubhouse. Then suddenly front office workers, sports information interns, sales people, the grounds crew and even two teenagers that were just visiting their grandmother for the day were roped into delivering all of Ginny’s loot.  It quickly became obvious that the clubhouse was going to be too small to be the staging area unless the team was willing to dress in their cars. Therefore it was all moved into an office, then into a conference room when even the office became too small.

                At first, opening and sorting the letters, cards and packages was fun in a goofy, I-shouldn’t-be-doing-this kind of way. Then it got a little tedious until a letter or card was something so outrageous it had to be shared.

                “Dear Ginny,” Salvi read out loud. “Please get well soon. We have a pool going in the office and I picked you’d be healthy in time for spring training.” He tossed the card to the floor. “Kudos for honesty, I guess.”

                “To my sweetest Ginny,” Evers read from a card he pulled from a padded envelope. “I’m sorry to hear about your injury. Know that you are in my dreams. I’ve included a sample from last night’s…” Sonny paused to look in the envelope and immediately threw it on the floor, jumping up and shaking his hands off. “Oh that freak! That slimy, disgusting piece of crap sent a tube full of his own…” his lip curled in disgust and he couldn’t even finish the sentence. “I’ve got to go wash my hands.”  Mike could hear Sonny cursing the entire way to the bathrooms.

                Mike and Salvi both stared at the offensive envelope lying on the floor, neither willing to cross the room to get near it.

                Hinkley stuck his head in. “What got Sonny going? He’s in the shower cursing about envelopes and sick bastards and body fluids.”

                Mike forced a smile. “Perfect timing. Grab a box of gloves and bio bags from the trainer’s room and bring them in here. I’ll show you what happened.”

                Several more players entered the conference room, drawn by Sonny’s rant or just general nosiness. They too were handed gloves and assigned to roles in Mike’s grand plan, now referred to as The Flower Plot.

                “Holy crap,” Melky blurted out as he stared at the newly opened letter in his hand. “This is…” he stopped, mouth opening and closing as he fought for words. He gave up and thrust the letter at Mike. Curious, several players crowded behind their captain to read over his shoulder. After reading two paragraphs worth of vitriol, Mike slammed the paper on the table, making all the players jump. “Call the cops.”

                Blip chose that moment to walk in the room. “Why are we calling the cops?”

                “I’ve got another one,” Hinkley said, his head still bent over the letter. Hinkley was one of the players that tolerated Ginny for the sake of team harmony, not out of like for her, yet he was visibly upset by what he saw. He carefully folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope before setting it on top of the open letter. When Mike reached for it, the third baseman snapped at him. “Don’t touch it. The cops might want to dust that one for prints. It’s…” he paused, before swallowing hard, “disturbing. They can’t let someone who threatens those acts run around free.”

                Blip’s eyes met Mike’s for a moment. Neither man wanted this new information to be used against Baker, either personally or professionally. The last thing she needed right now was someone else riding the “she’s a distraction and ruining the sanctity of baseball” wagon.

                “If we’re opening Baker’s mail, I’d suggest focusing on the ones with kids’ handwriting,” Blip said into the awkward silence.

                “Blip and I will take all the packages delivered by courier. Sonny and Salvi can start sorting through the packages…” Mike had to stop due to Sonny’s passionate refusal to even _look_ at another package, let alone open one. “Fine, Melky and Salvi can start on the packages. Sonny, you are in charge of finding all the letters written by kids. You too, Hinkley.”

                “You know this is a federal crime, right,” Sonny asked.

                “Yeah,” Blip acknowledged dismissively. None of the players paused for a second.

                The men spent the hours leading up to BP sorting through the deliveries. Mike left that night thinking he had a pretty good system set up and that the hard work was finished. Unfortunately, he seriously underestimated Ginsanity.

                The men spent an embarrassing amount of time the next day, Ginny’s surgery day, just processing the deliveries. Then came the hard work of moving everything around the clubhouse and rearranging the wall plaques. Al came in the clubhouse for a pre-game talk and stared in shock at the changes made. He shook his head and made eye contact with Mike. “She’s gonna kill you.”

                Mike grinned as several of the guys laughed. “Nah, Baker will love it.”

                Al left the clubhouse, muttering something that sounded like, “It’s your funeral.”

********************************************************************************

 

                A day later, Ginny opened the clubhouse doors and took two steps in before it hit her. The smell of flowers was nearly overwhelming. As she walked down the hallway, there were pots and vases of every type of flower and plant lining the walls. The door to her cubby was propped open and when Ginny turned on the light she could see why.

Flowers covered every single surface of her closet. Every. Single. Surface. The floor was covered with huge, extravagant displays usually reserved for funerals of monarchs. There were hanging pots of flowers attached to the support beams in the ceiling tiles. It was impossible to see her chair behind the towering hibiscus plant in a pot the size of a whisky barrel. Her cleats had small bud vases in them. Even her shampoo bottle had a rose sticking out of it.

                Ginny hadn’t even made it three steps out of her closet before she started sneezing. Someone thrust a box of tissues into her hand. “Take this. You’ll need it.”

                Ginny sneezed twice more before she could take the box. “Thanks,” she gasped, pausing to wipe her teary eyes before looking up.

                “What are you wearing?” She couldn’t help laughing.

                Voohries shrugged. “Goggles. I’m allergic to pollen and I can’t hit if my eyes are too swollen to see the ball.”

                “You can’t hit even when your eyes aren’t swollen,” Salvi piped up.

                “Let me get this straight. You’re even more allergic to pollen then I am, yet you’re okay with them stuffing plants in the clubhouse? Why?”

                He grinned, the googles giving him a cartoonish look. “The food made it worth it.”

                “What food?”

                He sucked his lips in like he realized he might have said too much. “You know, food. Oh look, I’ve got to go do…something. Anyways, glad you’re doing okay.” He gave a pat to the top of her head and vanished down the hall to the trainer’s room.

                Ginny moved to Salvi’s chair and gently kicked his shoe. “Spill.”

                Salvi’s grinned. “With pleasure,” he said, sounding perilously close to giggling. He waved a hand down the hallway leading to the offices and conferences rooms, motioning for her to precede him.

                “Oh my god,” Ginny muttered. “There’s more?” Even this hallway was lined with flowers and plants, to the point there was only a narrow path down the center. It was like walking through the Amazon. Every time her leg brushed a plant more pollen released into the air until she was sneezing and sniffing her way to the end of the hall.

                “G-Rose,” a voice called out from the open door of the conference room. “It’s about time! Get your butt in here before Sonny finishes off the apple pie.”

                “It’s really good pie,” Sonny defended around his mouth full of food.

                “What’s all this?”

                Blip waved a hand at the tables loaded with desserts. “This is the bounty that comes when Ginny Baker, ballplayer extraordinaire, gets hurt. America sends their best wishes with food.”

                “Really good food,” Salvi pipes up from the back of the room.

                “You’re eating my food,” she said, voice a statement of fact. She wasn’t exactly surprised; the plague of locusts would eat anything in sight.

                Omar clutched at his heart. “Not all of it,” he gasped in mock dismay. “How could you even think we would do something so low?”

                “We left all the packaged candy alone,” Blip added in such a pious tone that Ginny had to smile.

                “You’re so good to me.” Her voice was dripping sarcasm.

                “We are,” Voorhees said with false cheer. “If you look around, you’ll see that we used all of your Get Well mail to wallpaper the clubhouse. We’re givers like that.”

                “You’re mail thieves like that,” Ginny retorted.

                “True,” Blip shrugged unapologetically.

                Ginny looked around the room, her eyebrows pulling into a frown. “Where’s Lawson? This seems like a Lawson idea.”

                Blip’s grin was truly diabolical. “Oh, he’s in the other room. You’ll see him in a minute.” He leaned forward to mock whisper to her. “I think being around the food was killing his hangover.”

                Ginny covered her mouth to hide her smile. “He’s hungover? Really? However would you know?”

                The team roared with laughter. “G-Rose, that might be the best picture I’ve ever seen in my life,” Blip confessed.

                “Where’s Livan?”

                The men laughed even harder. “He hasn’t made it in yet. Missed morning practice and everything.”

                “Not that that’s never happened before,” a voice grouched from behind her.

                There was Lawson, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, frowning at her. Ginny gave him her biggest smile and batted her eyelashes at him for good measure. “Captain! How are you feeling,” she asked with mock concern.

                He slowly shook his head at her while the men hooted in amusement. “Just fine, rookie.”

                “Well, that’s good. It looks like the boys are willing to share _my_ food with us.”

                “Let’s not get carried away here,” Voorhies warned. “I never said I was sharing any food.”

                Before Ginny could respond to that one, a voice yelled from down the hall. “Are you ready yet?”

                A grin split Mike’s face. “Sit down Baker. I’ll show you some of the more interesting gifts you’ve received.”

                Ginny froze. She’d received many “interesting” gifts. That’s why Amelia now had security screen her mail. “Interesting how,” she asked hesitantly. “I don’t usually like interesting gifts.”

                It felt like every guy in the room exchanged weighted glances at her words. “You’ll see,” Mike answered vaguely. Then he gave her a small nod, one that signaled it was okay and that she had nothing to fear.

                Ginny plopped down on a chair, only to gasp as her arm bumped against the chair’s arm. All of the men’s eyes were turned towards the door way and Mike took the opportunity to slide closer to her. “Careful Baker, those screws are only 24 hours old. Don’t break them yet.” He glanced at his watch. “Did you take your pain meds right before you left my place?” At her reluctant nod, he said, “It’s time for your next dose. As soon as you eat something you’ll be taking them.”

                She leaned forward and hissed. “It’s not your business, Mike.”

                He just looked at her, his expression making it clear he thought it was.

                “I didn’t bring any with me,” she argued in a whisper.

                He smirked at her. “I did,” he whispered back.

                Ginny opened her mouth to blast him when the guys all started laughing, drawing her attention to the doorway. In the exaggerated motions of a Barker’s Beauty from the Price is Right, the other Padre rookies paraded into the room, some holding boxes, some carrying items in their hands, or (God help her) modeling some of the clothing and jewelry she received. Mike vanishes out the door as Ginny gapes at the expensive (some obscenely so) gifts and laughs as Melky does an exaggerated spin to make the beautiful silk scarf flare from its resting place on his shoulders. Then Mike comes back in the room and all eyes return to him. Of course they do; he’s a diva like that.

                He had his arm straight out and hanging from his arm were several items that, at first glance, looked like purses. It was only after he started reading the attached description of each gift did she realize what they were.

                Slings. Designers from all over the world sent her one-of-a-kind slings for her arm. One was a hand-beaded silk that resembled a beautiful sari. Another was a nearly translucent fabric that had things that looked suspiciously like real pearls sewn all along the edges. Many of them were nearly works of art, some not so much. A few designers had sent slings that were nothing more than free advertising for them, like she was going to walk around with a pleather sling that had “LV” or “C” initials emblazoned all over it. Please.

                But there were a couple that made the entire room smile, even the oldest veterans and her notoriously grumpy captain. The slings were very obviously made by children. One was plain white, with hand drawn Sharpie images saying things like “Go Padres”, and “Ginny Baker rocks”, interspersed with sketches of baseballs and her jersey. The other was a navy blue sling that someone had glued white and pink rhinestones and silver glitter all over it. Included in the package was two bottles of nail polish, one in ‘bubblegum shimmer’ pink and the other in multi-colored ‘unicorn glitter’. The note said that they nail polish would match the sling and she would fell much, much better with pretty nail polish on.

                A quick glance at his watch was all Mike needed to bring an end to the party. They had wasted enough time on the rookies, it was time for batting practice. Ginny waited until the guys had left and then quickly stuffed her face with the scraps of food they had left. A sound behind her had her swallowing fast, nearly choking herself. Why she felt guilty about eating her own food was beyond her.

                “Baker.”

                She let out a sigh. Of course it was him. She turned around and sure enough, there he was arrogantly motioning her forward with a crook of his finger.

                “What,” she bit out as her feet moved forward of their own volition.

                Without saying a word he held out his hand; in it was her pills. And before she could say anything he held up a water bottle with his other hand. So really, there was no other option except to take the medicine like a grown up, even though she wanted to have a tantrum because he was telling her what to do again. He didn’t say anything, just gave her a nod of approval when she swallowed the pills without complaint.

                “I can’t believe you went through my mail,” she blurted out, just to fill the silence.

                Lawson’s eyes crinkled at the edges, like he was smiling beneath the wooly mammoth on his face. “I wanted to see what Drake sent. It would be hard for him to top the private jet.”

                Ginny made a rude noise. “You just wanted to see what fan mail is like, given that you never get any.”

                “Please,” he scoffed. “I have ten times the amount of fan mail you do, and I don’t have to get hurt to receive it.” The smile vanished and he shifted back and forth. She knew his tells, waited to see what he wanted to say. 

                “Do you read all of your mail,” he finally asked.

                “No, wh.... oh.”

                “Yeah, oh. There were some pretty disturbing letters.”

                Ginny shrugged. “Yeah, I know. It’s gotten more frequent lately.”

                Mike’s eyebrows pulled into a scowl. “More frequent? How long have you been getting threatening letters, Baker?”

                She pretended to think. “Let’s see, when did I get drafted again?”

                “You were getting hate mail when you were 18,” Mike asked, just enough disbelief in his tone to make her bristle.

                “No, I actually got a couple when I was 17. The local police turned it over to the FBI because threats of rape against a minor can be a federal offense.”

                “Jesus Christ, seventeen?”

                A rap on the doorframe interrupted their hushed conversation. “Cap, we’re hitting the field.  You coming?”

                Mike raised an eyebrow at Baker. “Right behind you.”

                She knew that something was up because the players were watching her while trying really, really hard to act like they weren’t. She was hypervigilant her entire walk through the clubhouse but found nothing more than walls covered with cards and flowers everywhere.  It wasn’t until she reached the field that she saw what had her teammates giving themselves high blood pressure trying not to laugh.

                “Really? This is the best you could come up with? Boys, I’m sorely disappointed in you.”

                The dugout was full, literally full, of flowers. She had to push her way through flowers and plants just to get from the clubhouse to the dugout steps. It was like exploring the Amazon without leaving San Diego. Out of the corner of her eye she saw rustling near the end of the dugout. While she watched, a hard hat peaked out of the plants followed by a set of binoculars. It was hard to tell just by magnified eyes, but she was pretty sure that was Melky staring at her like a prize shot on a safari. Before she could call him out, he slowly sunk back down into the plants and another hard hat began to rise from a different section of the dugout.

                “Hanan, is that you? That better not be you,” she called out.

                “Uh oh, we’ve upset her,” Salvi said from behind her in his best Steve Erwin impression. “Be careful, she’s getting angry. She can be deadly when provoked.”

                Ginny turned to make a biting comment only to have her attention caught by movement across the field. “You didn’t.” There was no hiding her disbelief.

                She didn’t have to look at Mike to know he had on a shit-eating grin. “Oh, I did.”

                The opposing dugout was also full of plants and flowers and, sure enough, there were several hardhats sticking out of flowers with binoculars trained on her. “You got the _Red Sox_ to play along?”

                The Boston Red Sox were in town for just one game, the makeup of a rained out game in May. Interleague games rarely happened this late in the season, but with the Red Sox in the thick of the pennant race and the Padres still in the hunt for the second Wild Card, the game was too important not to play.

                Ginny pushed through the plants and onto the field only to have a massive sneezing fit from the pollen. She took the box of Puffs that Salvi handed her and self-consciously blew her nose while the players watched. “Really guys,” she called out to the visitor’s dugout when she could.

                A player stepped out of the dugout. He was holding a massive rose arrangement  in front of his face and torso, as if that could hide his 6’3”, 230 pound frame. He made a show of tiptoeing across the field towards her. Ginny was laughing in delight as she met him half way. “I can’t wait to hear how Lawson got you to go along with this,” she asked. She was trying to be nonchalant on the outside, while inside she was fangirling and hand flapping with the best of them.

                David Ortiz popped his head above the flowers. “How did you know it was me,” he asked, his trademark grin in full view. He put the vase on the ground and wrapped his arms around her in a big hug, gently lifting her off her feet. She could hear several of the Padres mutter under their breath, waiting for her to blast Big Papi for hugging her, but she just smiled and hugged him back.

                Really, it was simple. Everyone loved Papi, and he loved them back. There were endless amounts of videos and pictures of him full hugging, hi-fiving, side-arm hugging (for the guys that were a little too insecure for a full hug) and generally messing with MLB for the last 15 years. Yeah he gave her a big hug, but he’d given hundreds of big hugs to other players, so she was no different. Well, he probably didn’t pick many of the players off of their feet but, hey, it was David Ortiz and she was willing to bend her rules into a circle for him.

                “Ginny Baker, I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time,” he told her when he gently placed her back on the ground.

                “What a coincidence, I’ve been wanting to meet you too.” Listen to her sounding all calm and composed.

                “Really? Well then I’m lucky that we had that rain-out in May. Otherwise, we might have missed our chance.”

                She looked over her shoulder and saw Lawson with his arms crossed scowling darkly at her. She made sure to keep her voice low so only David could hear. “So what kind of dirt can you give me on Lawson? There’s a little payback in our captain’s future.”

                Papi pulled her back further behind home plate as the grounds crew began to set up the cages for batting practice. “See, here’s what you need to know…”

********************************************************************************

                “You’re a jerk,” Ginny told him, her voice nasally.

                “Now Ginny, don’t be like that,” David Ortiz, her _former_ favorite ballplayer and _supposedly_ nice guy, told her.

                “I hate you,” she grumped under her breath. Unfortunately, it’s not underneath enough. It turns out judging the volume of your own voice is really hard when your nose is plugged and your sinuses are full of pollen induced snot.

                “Baker, be nice,” Lawson barked at her. She didn’t have to look to know he was wearing a smirk.

                “I hate you too,” she grumbled, not even trying to keep her voice quiet.

                “Ignore her,” she heard Lawson tell Ortiz. “She’s grumpy when she’s tired and between the Benadryl and meds for her arm…”

                “Say no more. I understand,” Ortiz assured her traitorous captain. And damn if the big man didn’t start giving her a shoulder massage. She wanted to hit him, smack him for even daring to touch her after his vile betrayal (and no, she wasn’t being overly dramatic!) but his huge paws put just the right amount of pressure on the sore muscles of her neck and shoulders and –damn it!- she really needed a massage.

                “Okay, maybe I hate you a little less now,” she confessed. Big Papi’s laugh almost drowned out Lawson’s snort of disgust. “Really Baker? You’re that easy?”

                Ortiz’s hands froze on her shoulders. Ginny’s head slowly rotated to look at Lawson. Several of the surrounding ball players gulped. “Oh God, it’s like that scene from Poltergeist,” one of them muttered. She said nothing, just glared at her captain for a long minute, letting the silence build around them. Finally, she told him, “You’re one to talk, boy toy.”

                “OOO,” came in a chorus from the surrounding players.

                Mike’s eyes snapped to Ortiz’s. For a second, his expression was uncertain, like he’s trying to decide how likely it was the other veteran was telling tales.

                Before Big Papi could answer, Ginny reached up and patted one of his huge hands where it rested on her shoulder. “Whatever could you be worried about Lawson,” she simpered in her best southern belle voice. “It’s not like you have secrets you might not want to be revealed.”

                She turned her back to him and settled back into her temporary throne, a smug smile on her face as she politely ordered Ortiz to start rubbing.

 

                Of course that’s the picture that the newspapers run. And, of course, all of the video clips shown by all the sports shows start right when she tells future Hall of Famer David Ortiz to rub her shoulders. In a mindboggling change of behavior, the only reaction to the shoulder rubs is a general sense of amused understanding on her behalf. Yes, in any other situation, with any other person, and any other day she would likely be eviscerated by the press. However, there was some unannounced agreement by all of social media that she was allowed to do whatever she wanted, given the circumstances.

                And lord, were there circumstances. She was sitting in a flower covered throne behind the batting cage. Not a chair, oh no, but a throne a la Game of Thrones, completely and totally covered in flowers. She had vehemently objected to sitting on the throne, pointing to her red eyes and sneezing as reasons why she should get a pass. Instead of supporting her cause, Voohries graciously gifted her his goggles, and then immediately locked himself in the trainer’s room until game time to avoid allergy eyes. When she couldn’t stop sneezing, one of the Red Sox rookies had brought over a pair of swimming nose clips. Apparently the guy liked to swim but never learned how to not plug his nose while doing it.

                And just to be extra cruel, Salvi had his little girls in the clubhouse early in the morning and they made her several crowns from daisies, so she had chains of daisies draped all over her head. As obnoxious as Salvi could be, his girls were angels and there was no way she could not accept their gift. After all, it wasn’t their fault who their dad was.

                She’s still sitting in the stupid throne when Livan comes dragging onto the field in time to catch the end of batting practice. He stepped his way towards her, ignoring the cat calls of the other Padres, and the volley of flowers raining over him courtesy of a pilfered t-shirt cannon, and went so far as to sit on the arm of her chair, carelessly smashing the flowers under his fine Cuban ass.

                “How are you feeling, Livan,” Ginny asked.

                “Like shit,” he murmured. “You?”

                “Same.”

                Before any more could be said, there was a loud _whoosh_ and they both got blasted in the face with flowers. Ginny was spitting petals out of her mouth while Livan was sneezing and gagging at the onslaught of pollen and disembodied plants. “What the hell,” she choked out. She looked up just in time to see Stubbs shove the t-shirt cannon into Omar’s hands and run away as fast has his big frame could take him. Omar gave her a deer in the headlights look. “It wasn’t me.”

                With a battle cry worthy of Viking warriors, several of the Red Sox players launched themselves from their hiding place in the visitor’s jungle and made a raid on the Padre’s jungle. The leader was shooting flowers as fast as his assistant could load the cannon. The other players were lobbing flowers a handful at a time.

                “If we die, we die with honor,” came from the Padre’s jungle. Sonny and Melky charged carrying buckets of flowers to be used in the team’s battle to the death. Omar ran back to the dugout to get supplies and drafted Hanan to be his assistant.

                “What are they fighting over,” Livan asked her.

                “I have no idea,” Ginny sighed. It seemed like a good idea to get out of their way. She made an effort to get out of the seat but sank down with a groan. “The drugs are making me woozy. I need to hold on to your arm,” she confessed, her voice sounding like she gargled broken glass.

                Livan blinked his red eyes at her. “It’s still that painful to ask for help?”

                “Hell yes.”

                Livan’s bloodshot eyes widened at something behind Ginny. “It’s time to move, Mami.” He lifted her up and pulled her behind the chair with him, just in time to watch the spectacle of a dozen grown men, some of whom made millions of dollars a year, charge at each other shooting flowers and plants out of a t-shirt cannon at 25 mph. The guys without the cannons flung handfuls of flowers around, while two players were dueling using the stem of roses as their fencing swords. More players from each side joined in until it was a full out medieval war, with flower fortresses (the dugouts) to defend, soldiers to fight (primarily rookies and field players because starters don’t play well with others, she was told) and the team captains elevated themselves to full field general status for strategy purposes.  And because you just have to have something to fight for, defending your home not being enough motivation, they had to fight for the flower throne. And the flower queen that goes with it. All of this was explained in shouts by different players as they shot flowers or fenced with roses.

                “Maybe I’ll get lucky and the entire team will die of flower poisoning,” Livan said darkly.

                “Number one, no such thing. Number two, am I included in your death wish?”

                Livan squeezed his eyes shut at the noise from a cannon gun being shot right behind them. “Right now _I’m_ included in the death wish, so yes.”

                Ginny leaned her head to rest on Livan’s shoulder. “You know you love me.” She tipped her face up towards his and smiled.

                Livan looked down at her from the corner of his eye. “I don’t. I really don’t.”

                A horrified grounds crew brought an abrupt end to both her conversation and the flower war. Despite her vehement insistence that she was fine, Ginny ended up sprawled  in her bed at Omni. Her alarm was set and she planned to be back at the park in time for pregame. Everyone from Al to Oscar to Mike told her that no one expected her to be at the park a day after her surgery and she should just stay home and sleep. She wanted nothing more than to listen to them, but she didn’t want to miss the game. She should probably be thinking about how much it would mean to her fans if she could show she was okay so soon after surgery. Instead, she planned to go back for purely selfish reasons. She wanted to watch the only game she would ever compete against David Ortiz before he retired and she did not want anyone, be it press or social media or players or whomever, to think that she couldn’t handle some stupid pranks. Also, she needed to keep Livan from killing his teammates. Twice he’d already texted her threats against one of the Padres.

                As she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she smiled sleepily. She really needed to thank Big Papi one more time, she reminded herself. Her next prank against Lawson was going to be epic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a hard time convincing myself to post this chapter because I'm not confident in it. Hopefully it's not as shaky to you as it is to me.
> 
> My inner fangirl got away from me and I included David Oritz, aka Big Papi, in a chapter. He's just too great of a player and too well recognized by even non-fans to bypass. 
> 
> Your comments mean so much to me. Keep them coming if you are able!


	11. second beers and cell phones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny and her teammates going out to a club to drown their losing-streak sorrows. Mike loses a bet, Ginny mixes pain meds and alcohol, and the club is full of cell phone photographers. Then a joke between friends hits the tabloids, and things begin to get ugly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This month has been insane, with family graduations and me starting a new job while having to work the old one, and it feels like I haven't slept in weeks. Writing is my stress relief and not having the time to do it has been hard.
> 
> I want to thank cmkmackie, monkshoodr, and everyone else for their kind words and comments. I can't tell you how much they meant to me and how much I needed it to keep me writing through it all.
> 
> The song referenced is Down by Marian Hill.

                 So it might have been a mistake to have that second beer. The most recognized female in the United States, and possibly the world, had to always be on guard. Sure she could loosen up and have fun with her friends, but self-control was the key to staying out of trouble. It wasn’t that she went looking for trouble; she tried hard to avoid it. But trouble always came looking for her, whether it was the media trying to find her picking up a groupie or strangers being a little too rambunctious in a bar. Behavior that other ball players got away with every single night could get her crucified as a “slut” or a “drunk” and quickly get her thrown out of the majors.  So she drank beer instead of hard liquor and always limited herself to no more than one beer an hour.

                Unfortunately, she hadn’t counted on the potency of mixing beer with pain meds. It didn’t even occur to her because it’s not like she’s ever gone to a club a week after surgery. It wasn’t that she was drunk. She wasn’t. But she was buzzed enough that any decisions she made were probably not going to be her best.

                The entire team had come out to the club tonight. They weren’t celebrating their recent home stand record, that’s for sure. They’d gone 2-4 and were barely hanging on to a chance at the second wild card. But she had mentioned going out for drinks with a couple of the guys, who had mentioned it to a couple more, until someone mentioned it to Lawson. Then Lawson proceeded to announce that the entire team was going out to a club that night (he didn’t ask, he told), and once he reminded everyone that Baker was buying the first round of drinks everyone was eager to attend. Objections from her just brought the threat of having to buy the second round so she gave in, albeit ungracefully.

                She was sitting at the four tables the team had commandeered and shoved together, wedged between Livan and Sonny. The conversation was rowdy and fast flowing, especially after their second round of drinks. One thing led to another and suddenly conversation drifted back to the sunflower seed competition from earlier in the day.

                It had started as a light-hearted competition in the bullpen over who could spit seeds the farthest. Then, because it always happened like that with the Padres, it became a full-fledged team tournament, with brackets and results based on precise tape measure rulings, and the prizes for winning made sure the competition was intense. Whoever lost the head-to-head match owed the victor a favor, any favor. Of course caveats had to be added; nothing immoral or illegal, nothing that could get someone in trouble with their significant other, nothing that would cost a lot of money, etc. If there was ever a disagreement on the terms, a team tribunal would determine the fairness of the favor requested.

                Ginny had done much better than the guys expected. She had advanced to the quarterfinals before losing to Butch, the eventual team champion. That meant several guys owed her favors including team captain extraordinaire, Mike Lawson. On the other hand, she owed Butch a favor and she had no idea what to anticipate from him. She didn’t spend much time with him and didn’t really have a good read on him. So it was a pleasant surprise when he didn’t keep her in suspense, instead announcing to the entire team she was going to be his beer bitch for the night. They all glared at him for using the term bitch, but instead of instantly sputtering an apology he asked Ginny if it bothered her. The team breathed a sigh of relief when she said that in this instance beer bitch didn’t bother her, given that several others were wearing that same title that night.

                So the evening was going well, the entire team having fun, and Ginny had her second beer. She planned to blame a lot on that second beer. In fact, she was going to blame everything on that second beer. The second beer is what made her blow her Lawson-owed favor the first night she actually had it.

                “Dance with me.”

                The entire conversation paused at her order to Mike. As one they all turned to stare at their captain. It was well-known that Mike Lawson didn’t dance. Only a few long time Padres members could remember seeing their captain dance and that was years ago.  This was going to be an uphill fight that Ginny might not win.

                “No.”

                “You owe me, captain.”

                “No.”

                Ginny played her trump card and appealed to the team. “He’s backing out of the wager. You’re all my witness. Am I requesting anything out of line?” After a quick team vote there was unanimous agreement that, no, she wasn’t out of line and that Mike had to honor the request. Mike leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

 “You want to dance now,” he asked, the scowl on his face showing how little he liked being forced into it.

                Ginny tilted her head as she listened to the music. “No, I don’t like this song. I’ll let you know when I hear something worth dancing to.”

                The conversation went back to normal and after half an hour passed with no indication that Ginny had any intention of actually using her favor tonight, Mike relaxed. It was almost two hours, and another two beers, later that a song came on that made Ginny gasp and jump to her feet. “I love this song! Let’s go Lawson.” She wiggled out of her seat between Sonny and Livan and stood at the end of the table waiting for Mike.

                With a sigh strong enough to part her hair, Mike begrudgingly pushed away from the table and followed her towards the dance floor. “Come on old man, limp faster,” she coaxed. “By the time we get to the floor the song will be over.”

                “That’s what I’m aiming for,” Mike muttered.

                Instead of taking offense, Ginny grabbed his hand and tugged at it, pulling him towards the dance floor. She turned and walked backwards, smiling as she sang the lyrics to him.

_Everywhere I look are peoples' hands_  
_Thrown up in the air to help them dance_  
 _Come on, baby, catch me if you can, I_  
 _Know you don't have any other plans_

               

                Mike gave in and let her tug him onto the dance floor. She immediately began to dance, her good arm above her head and her hips swaying to the music. Instead of joining her, Mike stood on the dance floor with his arms crossed and glared at her. She laughed at his bad humor and did her best to persuade him to dance, moving around him and rubbing her body against his. She was careful to keep her dancing from crossing a line; there was no more body contact between them than any other couple on the floor. In fact, it was less so than some of the dancing she had done with other teammates. And yet still Mike wouldn’t move.

                She finally lost her patience with him. She gave him a solid shove to his shoulder before turning towards the team’s tables. She makes an arm gesture at her stubborn captain, clearly showing the guys what a poor sport he was being. They shouted back, their words lost in the thumping bass, but their thumbs down and finger waving was more than enough to get their point across. Ginny turned towards Mike and gave him a glare before flouncing off the dance floor towards the table.

                She made it exactly two steps before a muscular arm wrapped around her waist and tugged her backwards. She could feel his laughter as he spun her around once before setting her on her feet and pulling her around to face him. She tried to hold onto her anger but her scowl faded into a smile at the sight of the grin on Lawson’s face. “You are such a cheater,” she told him.

                He laughed. “I thought you wanted to dance Baker. The song is almost over and you want to waste it talking?”

                “Oh, it’s on now,” she retorted, fully intending to blow him away. She once again began to move her hips in time with the beat, swaying against him only to flit away a beat later. Mike grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him.

                “Oh no, you don’t. If you wanted to dance with me, you’re going to dance with me.”  She gaped at him until he turned her and pulled her back up against his chest. “I believe this is what you were going for,” he taunted, his breath warm against her ear.

                She tipped her head back and laughed up at him. “It’s a start. Try to keep up old man.” The song was nearly over, but they both did their best to dance each other into submission. A slow song immediately followed the end of their song but instead of running from the floor Mike pulled her into his arms.

                “Well,” he asked with a smirk.

                She circled an arm around his neck. “Well what?”

                “Admit I can dance.”

                “If you call that geriatric knee cracking in time with the beat dancing than yes, you can dance.”

                He laughed. “How about I admit you can dance? Will that make it easier?”

                She grinned up at him, her dimples showing. She rose up on her tiptoes until her face was close enough to feel his breath warm her cheek. She held it for a second, two, before whispering. “No. I’ll never admit you can dance. You certainly can’t keep up with me.” She dropped to her heels and laughed, her face tilted up towards his.

                Mike shook his head, a smile spreading across his face despite his best effort to frown. “You are such a little shit.”

                “You love me,” she told him before stepping away from him and leaving the floor. And because Mike would be damned before allowing himself to be left standing alone on a dance floor, he followed right on her heels. He glanced over at the Padres’ tables and his smile disappeared. Most of the team was laughing and joking with each other, cheering Baker as she triumphantly made her way back to them. Blip wasn’t one of them. Neither was Omar or Butch.

                 Blip was staring Mike down. Not scowling or glaring, just staring in that straight forward way of his that made Mike think Blip could read him like a book. His friend, or maybe former friend now, just watched him walk towards the table, his face expressionless as his eyes never left Mike.

                  Omar looked worried. He kept glancing back and forth between Ginny, Mike, and Blip. The more Omar looked at Blip, and the way the veteran was watching his captain, the more nervous he became. And after he caught Mike’s long look at Ginny’s perfect ass, his concern heightened. It felt like something was happening here that he was missing, and he had a feeling that something wasn’t going to be good.

                  When Mike met Butch’s eyes, the older man’s eyebrows were raised. He looked back and forth between Ginny and Mike, like he was suddenly drawing conclusions. He slowly shook his head at Mike, very much like a disapproving father of a teenage daughter, and damn if it didn’t make Mike feel like a sixteen-year-old boy bringing a date back home past curfew.

                 Ginny accepted the hi-fives and fist bumps offered by the team. She dropped into her chair and grinned at the compliments thrown her way, not sober enough to pretend modesty. “Hey, I love to dance. It’s lucky for everyone that I’m great at it because I make you stiffs look good.”

                That got her some flak from the team, but not nearly as much as Mike caught when he pulled up his chair. They razzed him mercilessly about his refusing to dance and how he had looked like a grandpa out there when he was scowling and pouting. Eventually a few of the guys unbent enough to grudgingly admit that Mike wasn’t a bad dancer. “Maybe you could go on Dancing with the Stars after you retire,” Salvi suggested. More teasing followed that, but it was light hearted and Mike was laughing with everyone else.

                Ginny leaned her head against Livan’s shoulder. “I did it,” she told him around a sudden yawn. “I got him to dance. You didn’t think I could.”

                “I stand corrected,” Livan said. “I’ll bring you those tamales tomorrow, little Rosie.”

                Suddenly Ginny wasn’t feeling well. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was the thought of spicy food, but the beer was sitting poorly in her stomach and her head was swimming. She shoved away from the table, startling Livan and several others. “I’m gonna go guys. I’ll see you tomorrow at the park. Be good because I won’t be using any of my hard earned money on bail for anyone that earns more than me. And that’s all of you,” she thought to point out.     

                She carefully made her way around the table, having to focus a lot harder than she should just to stay upright and not stumble into chairs. But she’d always been able to hide her liquor well and none of the guys seemed any wiser to her intoxication. They called out good-byes and she moved around them and stepped into the crowd.

                Both Blip and Mike watched Ginny walk away, thinking there was something off about her. Mike pushed his chair back, intending to go after her just to make sure she was okay, but Blip beat him to it.

                “I’m gonna call it a night, too.” At the groans from the team, he added “I’ve got to take the twins to an early morning dentist appointment. I’m going to need every second of sleep I can get to deal with that.” That certainly changed the team’s response and the guys were still wishing him good luck as he followed Ginny’s path, picking up his pace in hopes of catching her before she left the club.

                He nearly ran into her when she stopped suddenly in the middle of the crowd, her hand going to her forehead. Someone bumped into her from the side and she nearly fell over.

                “What’s going on Ginny? Are you sick,” Blip asked as his arm circled her waist.

                “I’m not feeling so hot Blip,” she admitted.

                Blip looked at her and agreed that she didn’t look well. “Come on, I’ll get you home. Unless you’re going to puke in my car. Then you’re taking the bus.” He guided her to the door. By the time they stepped out onto the crowded sidewalk she was leaning heavily into his side for support. He handed his keys to the valet and they waited, both fervently hoping that Ginny didn’t get sick on the sidewalk in front of everyone with a cell phone and internet access.

                Fortunately the valet was quick, remembering Blip as a good tipper. He got both of them in the car and waited until he pulled away from the curb before handing her the emergency bag he always kept in his car. Life with twins had taught him to be prepared, especially since he had expensive leather seats that didn’t handle vomit very well. He offered to have her stay the night at the Sanders’ casa, but Ginny just rolled her eyes and ordered him to take her back to the Omni. He walked her to her room and made sure she was safely inside before reluctantly leaving. He was on his phone with Evie before his car pulled out of the garage. He and Evie had their problems, especially now, but they were united in their love of Ginny, and he wanted her opinion on what he witnessed. He had a bad feeling and he was hoping Evie could convince him it was all in his imagination.

 

***********************************************************************************

 

                Incessant pounding on her door woke Ginny from her heavy, alcohol induced sleep. She considered ignoring it for a moment, but after the person just pounded harder she dragged herself out of bed and across the room.

 “Mike, just let yourself in again,” she nearly shouted as she yanked open the door. Really, who else would be so obnoxious enough to pound on her door at seven in the morning? He’d done it before so he was likely to do it again. It was a Lawson type of thing to do.

Evelyn’s wide eyes met Ginny’s. “Gin, you need to tell me why Mike Lawson lets himself into you bedroom.” She pushed past Ginny and the only thing that kept Ginny from running down the hall to avoid this conversation was the amazing smelling coffee and kolaches that Eve was carrying.

                “It’s not my bedroom, Ev. Just the living room,” she mumbled around a huge yawn.

                Ev carefully set the coffee and food on the coffee table before dropping onto the sofa. “Girl,” she began before she actually looked at Ginny. The younger woman looked like she had fallen asleep standing up. Her eyes were closed and her head had tipped to one side. Her hair was so flyaway that it looked like she had been playing with electricity. “Ginny Baker, you had better wake up and talk to me!”

                Ginny jerked upright and her eyes flew open. “Ouch,” she gasped out, holding her casted arm to her chest. “Don’t scare me like that.”

                “I want details, Ginny. Very, very specific details about what happens when Mike Lawson lets himself into your bedroom.” When Ginny mulishly pressed her lips together Evelyn waved the kolache bag in her direction and Ginny folded like a house of cards.

                “I told you, it wasn’t my bedroom,” Ginny objected around a mouth full of food.

                “So he didn’t enter your bedroom?”

                Ginny swallowed. “Well, yes he came into my room.” She had to wait until Ev’s little squeals of excitement passed before she could continue. “It wasn’t like that, Ev! He broke into my room to check on me when my phone was dead.”

                “Oh, we’re going to get back to that situation again,” Ev warned. “I’m not sure there are enough apologies in the world for the panic you caused me Ginny Baker.” She waited until Ginny smiled sheepishly before pouncing. “So tell me why you were dirty dancing with Mike.”

                Ginny’s draw dropped and her eyes widened and Evelyn couldn’t suppress her laughter. “I what,” she gasped.

                “Oh yeah, the way I hear it you and Mike were all over each other,” Ev continued.

                Ginny ran her fingers through her hair, wincing when they caught on tangles. “I didn’t. I mean, sure I don’t remember everything, but I wouldn’t do that.” She bit her lip and met Ev’s eyes. “Right?”

                Evelyn raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You don’t remember last night? How much did you drink? Ginny, that’s not like you.”

                “I know,” Ginny exclaimed as she dropped back onto the sofa cushions. “I think it’s the pain meds. I only had a couple of beers, then…” she shrugged.

                Evelyn opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the ring of Ginny’s cell phone. “Just ignore it,” Ginny sighed. The ringing eventually stopped, but it was followed up immediately by the buzzing alert indicating a text. The buzzing continued with barely a pause between them.

                “Ginny, your phone is having a seizure.”

                Her room phone rang, surprising both women. Very, very few people had access to her hotel phone. She exchanged glances with Evelyn before hesitantly answering the phone. “Hello?”

                “Where have you been,” Eliot rushed out. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”

                “I just got your…” Ginny began.

                “Ginny, we have a situation. It’s blowing up the internet. Seriously, this is big.”

                “Eliot!” Ginny’s voice was sharp. “What are you talking about?”

                Ev walked out of the bedroom with Ginny’s phone in her hand. “Ginny, you have 41 texts, and 12 missed messages.” Her expression was curious. “What’s going on?”

                “I don’t know, Eliot was about to tell me.”

                “Ginny, I’ve emailed you links to a couple of the stories. Look now while I’m on the phone.”

                “Let me put you on speaker, Eliot.” Ginny grabbed her tablet and quickly brought up her email account. Evelyn had just resumed her seat on the sofa when Ginny clicked the first link.

 

**GINNY BAKER DATING PADRES CATCHER MIKE LAWSON!!!  MIKE FURIOUS WHEN GINNY LEAVES WITH NEW FLING BLIP SANDERS.**

 

**“** Oh my God,” Ginny breathed. Evelyn’s hand came up to cover her mouth in shock. There had been quietly whispered rumors about her dating teammates when she was in the minors, but this was the first time anyone had actually come out and accused her in public. And lord, was it public.

                “The other links have the pictures they’re calling ‘evidence’”, Eliot warned.

                Hesitantly, Ginny clicked the second link. The photo that claimed to be proof they were on a date was obviously snapped by a cell phone at the club. Actually, if one wanted to be picky, it was two photos cropped to be side by side. The left half showed Ginny holding Mike’s hand, facing him as she was smiling and singing along to the music. This was something she did remember; she was pulling Mike to the dance floor. The right half was one taken from behind and simply showed them hand in hand. The distance was impossible to judge from the angle of the photo, but the implication was that they were nearly in each other’s pockets. Undoubtedly an expert level of Photoshopping occurred to make the photos more convincing.

                “Okay, that’s not so bad,” Ginny sighed with relief. Ev shot her a look but didn’t disagree.

                “Look at the second and third one,” Eliot prompted.

                The second one was a slightly blurry picture of Mike on the dance floor, his arms crossed and a glare on his face as she danced in front of him.

                “Okay, I’m not seeing the issue with this one,” Ev admitted. “All it shows is that Mike wouldn’t dance.”

                “They’re twisting it to fit their story,” Eliot said. “Look at the third one.”

                There was a picture of Ginny shoving Mike’s shoulder, both of them frowning at each other.  Ev let out a snort of laughter. “Now this is the one that anyone who has ever played with these two will know is real.”

                “Why,” Eliot asked.

                “Because sometimes we look like this after a bullpen session,” Ginny admitted sheepishly. “I always want to throw a few more pitches and Lawson is a nosy do-gooder who found my pitch counts and enforces them.”

                Evelyn choked on the bite of kolache. “Nosy do-gooder,” she repeated when she could talk. “Have you been watching Scooby Doo marathons again? Didn’t we talk about that?”

                “Two more to go,” Eliot said, bringing their attention back to the attachments. “The fourth one is their ‘proof’ of your wild fling with Blip.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “That’s what they said, Evelyn, not me.”

                “I know,” Ev assured him absently, her attention on the picture opening on Ginny’s screen. There were Ginny and Blip, watching as the valet drove the Sanders’ car up. Blip had his arm around Ginny’s waist, propping her up as she leaned hard into his side.

                “Girl, you look awful,” Evelyn told Ginny.

                “Good lord, I really do, don’t I? How can anyone call this a ‘fling’ when it looks like I’m about to throw up on Blip’s shoes?”

                “You don’t look _that_ bad,” Eliot pointed out. “Besides, the tabloids are hoping that everyone will focus on his arm around you, not that you’re half asleep.”

                “Well, bad picture of me aside, I really don’t see anything damning or even that bad. All of this is easily explainable.”

                “Look at the last one, Gin.”

                Ginny dutifully clicked the last link.

                “Oh shit,” Ginny whispered.

                “Girl, you have some explaining to do,” Evelyn said on a breath.

                The picture was grainy, shot from a distance with a cell phone camera. The dark club mixed with random strobe lights made it fuzzy and gray scale, like the camera hadn’t been able to fully focus on the couple. You could see the outlines of someone that resembled Ginny and Mike, but there wasn’t enough detail to guarantee it was them. What you could see was that a slender woman was on her tiptoes, her mouth a mere two inches away from the lips of a bearded, bulky man.  One of the woman’s arms was wrapped around the man’s neck while his large hands rested on her hips.

                “Ginny,” Eliot asked hesitantly after the stunned silence dragged on.

                “I’m gonna have to get back to you,” Ginny told him.

                “Wait! What do you want me to do? I can’t get ahold of Amelia and we have to do something. It’s gone beyond viral at this point.”

                Ginny rubbed her forehead, trying to alleviate the building headache. “Give me an hour, I’ll think of something.”

                “Oh, give me an hour and I’ll have a response they’ll never forget,” Ev said in a tone so fierce that Ginny stared, somewhere between amused and frightened.

                “Okay guys, an hour it is, but then I really need an idea,” Eliot agreed reluctantly.

                The minute the phone call ended Evelyn was on her phone with Blip. “Blip, what’s the number to our lawyer? You know what, what’s the number to his entire law firm.” She paused to listen to whatever Blip was saying on the other line. “I know you’re at the dentist Blip, but this is really important. Tell them to sit their butts down and hold still while you go outside to talk.” There was another pause which Ginny assumed meant Blip was delivering his orders to the twins and walking outside.

                “TMZ is running a story that Mike and Ginny were dating, except now you’re her new fling and Mike is angry at you both. I bet they’ll decide that’s what you and Mike were fighting about in the dugout.” Another pause. “You know what, I want OJ’s dream team. We’ll make the tabloids regret their entire existence by the time we’re done.” Pause. “Well then dig him up! I don’t care if he’s dead, I want these idiots to pay!”

                Ginny took that as her cue to slip into the bathroom for a quick shower.

               

                ********************************************************************

 

                “Okay, Ginny’s out of the room,” Evelyn said, keeping her voice just above a whisper.

                “Alright Ev, what’s really going on?”

                “Some tabloid and TMZ are saying that Mike and Ginny are dating, but that they had a fight last night because your Ginny’s new fling.”

                Ev could nearly hear Blip’s jaw drop. “What?”

                “I know. They have pictures that they consider proof. Four of the five can be easily explained.”

                “And what about the fifth,” Blip asked hesitantly.

                Ev pursed her lips and tried to think of how to explain what she saw. “It’s blurry enough that you can’t be 100% sure it’s her and Mike. All you can see is the outline of a bearded guy and a curly haired woman, very nearly kissing.”

                “I know exactly when that must have been taken.”

                “Is that the kind of things you saw last night that worried you,” Ev nearly whispered.

                Blip blew out a breath. “It wasn’t just that specific moment. Ginny was just teasing Mike, we all knew it. Their dancing wasn’t anything worse than how she dances with everyone else and frankly, it was a lot less than how she dances with Livan. Those two can raise some eyebrows.”

                “So what was the problem?”

                “It was how he was watching her. I’m beginning to think there’s something there, at least on his side.”  There was a pause, and then Blip said “The dentist is ready to see the boys, so I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when we’re done.”

                Ev stared at her silent phone, considering everything Blip had said. She flopped back against the sofa cushions. Right now Mike was going to have to get at the back of the line of Ginny’s problems. They needed to come up with an idea on how to handle the gossip first. Evelyn sighed, mentally damning Amelia to hell for not being here to help Ginny with this mess. And after Ginny decided to just ignore the rumors, Evelyn damned Amelia a little more.

**********************************************************************************

               

                His phone wouldn’t stop ringing and Mike nearly threw it against the wall just to shut it up. With a growl of annoyance he rolled over and snatched his phone of the nightstand, slamming his thumb against the volume buttons to mute it. The screen lit up with yet another phone call and he froze when he saw who was calling.

                “Amelia,” he answered the call, his voice scratchy from sleep. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

                “Mike Lawson, I’m going to cut off your balls with a rusty butter knife,” Amelia’s voice snapped with the sharpness of a whip.

                Mike rubbed his face, trying to wake up enough to deal with Amelia and her obviously pissy mood. “Did you call for a particular reason, or did you just want to threaten my boys for fun?”

                “I warned you what I’d do if you did anything to harm Ginny.” God help him, Amelia sounded menacing enough that he rolled out of bed and padded to his closet. This seemed like a conversation best held when both parties were dressed.

                “I haven’t done anything to her,” Mike argued as he struggled to balance on one foot and shove his other through the sweatpants leg.

                “So you weren’t at a club with her last night?”

                Mike pulled a shirt over his head. “Yeah, the entire team went out last night.”

                “Oh.” At the pregnant pause, Mike gave up and flopped back onto the bed. He knew Amelia and her silences, and this didn’t bode well for a short conversation.

                “You danced together, right?”

                Mike raised an eyebrow even though there was no one around to see it. Honestly, at this point it was an instinctive response to ridiculous questions. “Yes, we danced. How do you know?”

                “She really got you to dance,” Amelia said, her voice sounded impressed despite her normal steely self-control.

                Mike sighed. “Yes, the apocalypse is upon us. Is there anything else you want to know?”

                “Oh yes, I want to know how pictures of you two are all over the internet. I also want to know why they are being used to insist the two of you are in a relationship,” Amelia snapped.

                Mike rolled his eyes. “Is that what this is all about? Amelia, this happens all of the time. I’m constantly being rumored to be in a relationship. You know this.”

                “But not with your teammate, Mike,” Amelia pointed out.

                “Seriously, every spring training some rumor starts about a catcher and his pitcher being in a secret relationship. Ignore it.”

                “That’s not the same thing Mike. This could seriously impact her career, maybe even get her released or cause her to lose sponsors.”

                Mike abruptly sat up. “Do you really think that a gay player wouldn’t suffer every bit of that? Are you so naïve that you think certain MLB executives, owners, and even some players wouldn’t try to crucify this guy? And let’s not forget how some fans would react.” He didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in his tone. He knew of several gay players in the majors, good players and more importantly great guys, and it sucked that they had to hide, and sometimes deny, who they really were.

                That drew Amelia up short. “Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that,” she finally admitted. “Still, these rumors can cause serious damage if they aren’t handled immediately.”

                “Okay Amelia,” Mike sighed heavily. “You’re dying to tell me how the rumors got started so just do it.”

                “I sent you some links to photos and the story.”

                Mike walked down the hall to his office and pulled up his email. “Why do you care,” he asked while he was waiting. “You aren’t her agent anymore.” There was absolute silence on the phone. He couldn’t even hear Amelia breathing.

                “Just open the email, Mike,” Amelia bit out through clenched teeth.

                Mike duly opened the link and skimmed the article before opening each picture to carefully study it. After several minutes, he pushed away from his computer. “I don’t see a problem Amelia.”

                “What,” she screeched so high he flinched.

                “The pictures don’t show anything out of the ordinary between two friends. I’m actually surprised that they’re using the picture with Blip. It’s obvious she’s about to vomit on his shoes.” He stopped to think. “You know, I don’t remember her having that much to drink, certainly not enough to be that sick.”

                “I didn’t know friends nearly kissed on the dance floor.”

                Her deadly serious tone of voice brought Mike’s attention back to the conversation. “We didn’t nearly kiss, Amelia.”

                “So that wasn’t you two with your lips an inch apart?”

                Mike was starting to feel like this was an interrogation, and he didn’t appreciate it. “Number one, it was much further than an inch. Number two, nothing happened. Baker was being a brat, that’s it. Number three, no one can even say for sure that the picture really is me and Baker. It’s too blurry.”

                Amelia’s calm tone mocked his. “Number one, it was very, very close to an inch. Number two, it doesn’t matter if nothing happened, it _looked_ like something happened. Number three, even you should know that it doesn’t matter if it’s definitely you, just the possibility of it being you two is more than enough for certain sites to run with it.”

                Mike ran his fingers through his hair, momentarily wishing it was longer so he could tug on it and relieve some of the frustration. “Amelia, enough.  Don’t panic until we know how this is going to play out.”

                “Mike…” she began again before he cut her off.

                “It’s been great talking to you Amelia, especially since you and Baker aren’t speaking anymore. I’ll keep you posted if we need anything. Or, better yet, I’ll have Ginny call you, you’ll answer the phone, and you two can figure out what to do if necessary.” Mike would be lying if he didn’t admit to thoroughly enjoying hanging up on Amelia before she stopped sputtering.

               He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. This wouldn’t be a big deal, he assured himself. Pitchers and catchers were always a favorite rumor for truly desperate scandal sites. To a lesser extent, so was he. While the tabloids gave him way too much credit for the sheer number of women, much of his playboy reputation was admittedly deserved. Surely that would only help; after all, he could have almost any woman he wanted, he wouldn’t need to chase his own pitcher.

              He let out a sigh before pushing up to his feet, straightening slowly so his back and knees could finish cracking. Things were going to be fine. The team would give them some grief, but this would blow over before it could become a thing. He was sure of it.


	12. The fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scandal started by the pictures at the club continues to spread and it begins to affect the lives of Ginny and everyone she cares about.

                 Ginny felt a rush of déjà vu as she moved down the hall towards the clubhouse. When she left the Omni, she had needed to push through more reporters and photographers than usual to get to her ride, had to turn the music up in her headphones to drown out their shouted demands for comments. The nervous excitement in her body gave her a slightly nauseous feeling as she paused before the doors and took a deep breath before pulling them open and striding into the clubhouse exuding confidence that was half bravado. It all reminded her of her call up to the Padres.

                 The sudden hush in conversation as the half-full clubhouse noticed her arrival was eerily similar to that long ago day, making her gut clench with the unwelcome reoccurrence of anxiety.  Then the guys were smiling and laughing as they called out to her, and her anxiety faded away like a long distant memory.

                “Hey Baker, how’s the hangover,” Salvi called out with a laugh.

                “It’s killing me,” she responded with a groan.

                The sound of the men’s loud laughter followed her into her room. She shrugged off the bag and dropped into her seat with a long sigh of relief. So she had lied to the boys; she was feeling fine with only a residual headache from last night’s lesson on the dangers of mixing meds and alcohol. Still, she’d rather take endless razzing for her first “drunken” night out with the boys than pity and antipathy for the drama they’d all see before the day was out.

                She took a minute to absorb the much needed comfort of her little cubby. The Padres’ clubhouse, and her little corner of it, was beginning to feel like home, like the one place in the world where she belonged. Here she could find support in the solidarity of players going through the same, or at least relatable, problems.

                A knock sounded on her door. “Come in,” she called out as she reluctantly rose from her chair.

                “So I hear you have a wicked hangover,” Lawson said as he shoved open her door.

                Ginny gave a one shoulder shrug.

                A grin spread across his face. “You must have at least a headache. I’ve never known you to be this quiet.”

                She rolled her eyes at that. “Just because I don’t give long winded speeches like you doesn’t mean I’m hungover, Lawson.”

                “Not many people _can_ give great speeches like me, rookie.”

                “Not many _should,_ including you old man,” Ginny retorted. “Now move, I’ve got to get to PT.”

                Mike stopped her with a hand on her arm when she tried to move past him. “Did Amelia call you,” he asked. If she didn’t know better, she would say he sounded hesitant. Mike was many things but hesitant was not one of them, so she must have been mistaken.

                “No. Did she call you?” She subtly rolled her shoulder and he took the hint to release her arm.

                “Yeah, she did. This morning.”

                Suddenly Ginny couldn’t meet his eyes. “Oh. Are you getting back together?”

                “What? No! Where do you come up with this stuff?”

                “What else should I think when my former agent calls her former fuck-buddy,” Ginny defended.

                “You should think about not jumping to conclusions. Geez, Baker.”

                Ginny heaved a dramatic sigh, hoping to cover up her embarrassment. Really, what was wrong with her that she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind? And how would it be any of her business if they did decide to get back together? “Fine. Why did Amelia call you?”

                Mike crossed his arms. “She sent me some links.” He shifted his weight back and forth and cleared his throat. “Have you been online yet today?”

                Ginny knew Mike’s tells and she knew he was uncomfortable. “Online? Oh.” Suddenly she was uncomfortable, too. “You mean those stupid pictures. Yeah, Elliott sent me the links.”

                “Amelia sent me those links along with a friendly call asking me what I was doing.”

                Ginny’s heartbeat ticked higher. “She called to yell at you about the pictures of us? I don’t know why she would do that.”

                Mike gave her a look. “Gee, let me think.”

                A knock on the door frame made them both jump. “Rita is looking for you G-Rose. You’re late for PT, and you know how much she loves when someone is late for PT,” Sonny gloated.

                Mike smirked at Ginny’s muttered curse. “Oh yeah, you’re going to pay for it now Baker.”

                “It’s your fault,” Ginny grumbled as she pushed both of the men out of her room in front of her.

                As the three entered the large room, someone called out, “Here are the two lovebirds.”

                Ginny froze and Sonny ran into her from behind. His laugh blended in with the rest of male laughter filling the clubhouse. His arm circled her shoulders and he pulled her beside him.

                “No.” Mike’s voice cut through the laughter in the clubhouse. He pointed his finger at Javanes and then at Hinkley. “Enough.”

                The laughter faded into awkward chuckles as the men threw glances at each other.

                “I’m late for PT and Rita’s looking for me,” Ginny confessed, ready to do nearly anything to break the developing tension in the clubhouse.

                The entire team had something to say about that. Some offered heartfelt sympathy, having learned the hard way about Rita’s belief in punctuality. Others just laughed and wished her luck on her first physical therapy appointment. As she headed towards her waiting appointment, Mike fell into step beside her and a few brave, or foolish, souls called out wishes for a happy date at PT. The entire team roared with laughter when Ginny simply flipped them off as she continued to walk away.

                Mike cleared his throat.  “Sorry about that. I’ll talk to them, keep them in line,” his voice quiet to keep the words between them.

                Ginny shot him a look. “They’re just teasing, Lawson.”

                “Still…”

                “You’re going to make it worse,” she warned. “Let them tease and have fun and hopefully they’ll forget in a day or two.”

                The captain just made a non-committal sound.

                Ginny kept her eyes focused on the rapidly approaching door to trainer’s room. “So how do you want to play this?”

                “Play what?”

                “Don’t be obtuse. The rumors. Social media blowing up those pictures.”

                “Just ignore them. It will die down in a day or two.”

                Ginny looked at him doubtfully. “You think this will all just disappear in a day or two.”

                Lawson gave an unconcerned shrug. “They always do. Someone more famous, or infamous, than us will do something more gossip worthy and we’ll be old news.”

                “Are you sure?”

                Mike ignored the niggly voice in the back of his head telling him that it couldn’t be so simple, not with the most famous woman in the western hemisphere involved. “Why do you doubt me, Baker?” He motioned towards the open doorway. “Now go, Rita is waiting for you.”

 

                *********************************************************************

 

                Any hopes of the “Baker scandal” being quickly forgotten faded over the next few days. Even legitimate media began reporting on it, first in amusement then in increasingly serious reports. Not all media bought into it, of course. Several Hall of Fame pitchers and catchers (one of the loudest being Pedro Martinez and, oh my God, one of her idols sent her text messages of support!) pointed out the necessary closeness of pitcher/catcher relationships. Rachel Patrick was an especially outspoken defender of Ginny. Still, even she became increasingly quiet as her station sought to downplay any connection to the increasingly polarizing Mike Lawson.  The Padres fans were stanchly loyal to their team and whole-heartedly argued against the rumors. Still, as the rumors dragged on, voices began to rise, questioning the distraction’s effect on the Padres players.

                The team had been slipping out of serious contention for the second Wild Card spot. It was a matter of a few games before they were officially eliminated from the play-offs. The Padres struggled and fought to stay in it, but the rookie pitchers called up to take her spot in the rotation struggled, one after the other. Tempers flared as slumping batters and exhausted pitchers started to listen to the pundits and began to blame each other for another disappointing season.

                Ginny worked hard to ignore the media and photographers and haters. She stayed off of social media, letting Eliot keep her abreast of anything important. She was long gone from the clubhouse before the reporters were allowed in. The other Padres refused to answer any questions about Ginny, and the Padres’ official response was no response was necessary for such foolish speculation.

                Their unofficial response was to call Ginny, Mike and Blip into a meeting with the top brass. Charlie and Oscar, several women from PR, Al, and even the head of human resources were there. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of Ginny’s life, and that was saying something because her life had been plenty uncomfortable at times. Darla, the director of HR, opened the meeting by saying that no one was accusing them of anything, and certainly no one believed the tabloids, but while it wasn’t technically illegal for teammates to be in a relationship, it was a very grey area that would be best avoided.

                Al quickly interceded when a red-faced Mike incredulously said “Are you freaking kidding me?”

                “Don’t get your panties in a bunch Mike,” Al began before quickly adding, “No offense, ladies.” He waited until he received their nods before continuing. “This is just a formality. No one really believes that anyone here is in a secret relationship.”  Al glared at the GM, and Oscar grimaced and looked down at his shoes.

                “So then why are we here if no one believes the stories,” Ginny asked the room in general.

                “We are here to touch base, to open the lines of communication from the clubhouse to the front office and business sections.  We want to all be on the same page so it will work out well for the team, the organization and, of course, the players,” Darla said with a smile at the three players.

                Blip leaned over to Ginny. “Where we having problems communicating,” he asked out of the corner of his mouth as Darla continued on a cliché driven speech.

                “I didn’t think so,” she murmured back. “I think _they_ are the ones having problems communicating.” Blip bit his lip hard to keep his laughter contained. The sight of Blip being so amused required Ginny to look up at the ceiling to keep her composure.   

                The three players had said the right things, listened to the speeches, and left the meeting with the front office appeased. But as they made the long walk back to the clubhouse, each player’s emotion was easy to see, and they all knew each other well enough that no words were necessary to communicate it. Blip was angry, Mike was beyond furious, Ginny was annoyed, and all three were frustrated. They quickly packed up their bags and headed home with no more than cursory good-nights to each other, eager to get away from a ballpark that suddenly felt a little less homey.

 

                                     ***********************************************************************************

 

                “I’m happy you’re home Noah,” Ginny told him with a contented sigh.

                “I’m happy I’m home, too,” Noah responded. His breath stirred the curls at the nape of her neck and raised goosebumps on her arms. Ginny shifted slightly to find a more comfortable spot. Noah’s bed was the softest thing she had ever slept on and it felt like she would sink into it if she didn’t find the perfect body position.

                “Are you okay? Is your arm hurting? I can get you something to eat or bring you medicine,” was Noah’s instant response.

                “I’m fine,” Ginny told him. Honestly, it was a good thing she was so tired because otherwise she might have found his hovering annoying. Instead, as she relaxed back against his chest, it seemed endearing in a slightly dorky way. His arm tightened around her waist and she could feel his smile against her neck.

                “You would say you’re fine if both of your legs were falling off. You’re like a knight from Monty Python.”

                A surprised laugh escaped Ginny. “It’s just a flesh wound,” she teased.

                His chuckle echoed hers. “I missed you,” he murmured, his lips brushing against her ear.

                Ginny tried to make sense of her feelings, but she was too tired, and there were too many feelings to sort out right now. All she knew was that she liked Noah, he liked her, and she wanted to give things a chance to work out. It might not; in fact, it probably wouldn’t. But now that she had a little more time, she was ready to take a chance.

                “I missed you too,” she told him. She rolled over to face him, but quickly flopped onto her back when her full weight rested on her casted arm. She groaned in frustration.

                “Wait! Don’t say anything,” Noah told her. He jumped up from his side of the bed, ran around to her side while stark naked, and settled on his back right next to her. Laughing at his goofiness, she rolled over to rest her head against his shoulder. His arm hugged his shoulder and her arm naturally wrapped around his waist. “Okay, now tell me,” he prompted.

               “Tell you what?”

               “How much you missed me, of course,” was his immediate response. “That’s what I heard you say. I’m sure you were about to expound upon that.”

               Ginny tried to hide her smile against his shoulder. “Was I?”

               “You were.”

               Ginny gave up and laughed out loud. “You are such a nut. What if I didn’t miss you at all? Did you ever think of that?”

               Noah nuzzled the top of her head. “Well, I did worry a little, but you’ve told me twice tonight that you missed me, so I’m feeling more secure now.” The chuckle that rumbled from his chest erased any seriousness from his words. His free hand slid along her arm until he was playing with her fingers. He held up their joined hands and lazily turned them back and forth in the air, as if he was studying their grasp.

               “It’s funny,” he mused.

               Ginny yawned. “What’s funny,” she asked, sleepiness beginning to creep into her voice.

               “Why the media is so obsessed with your hands. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you have great hands, but why tabloids obsess over every person you touch or fist bump or hold hands with is beyond me. There are so many more things to focus on than what you do with your hands.”

               Ginny stiffened against him. “What are you saying,” she asked.

               “I’m saying that the media is fixed on the pictures of you and Mike Lawson holding hands. Honestly, I’m not exactly sure why. I would have thought that the picture of you two face to face would have been the bigger draw, but it seems like no one believed it was real.”

               Ginny pushed herself upright and looked down at Noah. There was no anger in his expression or his tone, but his eyes met her steadily, obviously wanting an answer. “Are you asking me if Mike and I are secretly dating?” Even she could hear the defensiveness in her tone.

               “No. I’m not. I’m an open book for you, anything you want to know I’ll tell you. I hope that you’ll do the same for me. I need to trust that you’ll be honest with me, like I’ll always be honest with you. And I believe that if there was something going on, you would tell me yourself.”

               Ginny looked down at her bare knees for a minute, processing his words. She wanted to be angry, insulted even, that he would bring up the rumors, but she really didn’t have the right to be upset.  Noah was being supportive, far beyond what most men, or women, would be. In a burst of self-honesty, Ginny acknowledged that she herself would have asked some pointed questions if their situation was reversed and he was the one being shown in close contact with a co-worker.

               Ginny took a deep breath and met Noah’s eyes. “All the pictures are real, as I’m sure you know. The Padres were out at the club, all of us, trying to distract ourselves from the fact our season is nearly over.” She broke eye contact, focusing on her finger running up and down his bicep. “It’s hard to know that you’ve worked your butt off, did everything you could possibly do, and it’s nowhere near good enough.”

               “I know it is,” Noah quietly agreed.

                “Lawson owed me a favor after he lost a bet, and I made him dance with me. He hates dancing. The pictures of us holding hands are me literally pulling him onto the dance floor. That’s what we were arguing about in the one picture. He refused to dance, and I told him that he was reneging on our bet. At the end of the song he finally gave in and danced.”

               “Is he good at dancing,” Noah asked with quiet amusement.

               Ginny’s eyes darted up in surprise. “Not really,” she told him with a small smile.

               “Good.”

               Surprised laughter escaped Ginny. “Noah!”

               “It’s nice to know that Mr. San Diego isn’t perfect,” Noah said unrepentantly.

               Ginny shook her head at him. “He’s nowhere near perfect. Honestly, he’s about as far from perfect as a person can get. I suppose that’s what led to the picture of us so close together. He was trying to get me to admit he can dance and I refused. But I t’s fun to mess with Mike, keep his ego in check, and I wanted him to think I was going to agree.”

               “But you didn’t.” There was no hiding the smile in Noah’s voice.

               Ginny met his eyes with a smile of her own. “Nope.”

               A laugh escaped Noah and his arm shot around her waist to pull her down on top of him. “You tease.”

               She laughed at the memory. “He deserves it.”

               Noah gently brushed her curls away from her cheek. “Thank you for telling me. I trust you, but it’s nice to know the full story.”

               Ginny smiled softly at Noah, enjoying the warm feeling his words brought in her chest. “You’re welcome.” She tucked her head under his chin and closed her eyes. “Not many people would be so trusting, especially when the rumors are all over the tabloids.”

               Noah tipped his head to kiss her forehead. “Not many people get to know the real Ginny Baker. I’m one of the lucky few, and I’m not going to forget that.”

 

                                                   *****************************************************************************

 

               “So you spent all night with him,” Evelyn repeated.

               “Yes, I spent the night at his house. What about that surprises you?”

               Evelyn thought for a moment. “Nothing, except you didn’t tell me about it until now.”

               “Ev, it’s only ten in the morning. What was I supposed to do, call you in the middle of the night with updates,” Ginny asked in exasperation.

               “Yes,” Evelyn immediately responded.

               “You’re ridiculous.”

              “I know,” the smaller woman replied breezily. “You’re lucky to have me.”

              Ginny snorted. “I’m beginning to think Blip was right,” she began, but instead of finishing the sentence she just stayed silent, knowing it would drive Evelyn nuts.

              Sure enough, Evelyn lasted about two seconds before asking, “What? What did my husband say?”

              Ginny hid her smile and kept walking without even looking at Ev. The smaller woman took a few running steps in heels so high that were nearly inhumane and turned around to stand right in front of her friend, nearly causing Ginny to trip over her. Ginny took one look at Ev standing there scowling with her hands on her hips, and lost it.

                Evelyn looked at her best friend laughing like a loon and had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from joining in. “You are a terrible person, Genevieve Rose Baker.”

                Now Ginny scowled at Evelyn. “No, you are a terrible person for using that name in public. Low blow, Ev.”

                “Mom! Hey, Mom,” Marcus interrupted. “Can I have a water gun? Please? If I promise not to shoot you with it?”

                “No. There is no way you could have a water gun and not shoot everyone around you,” Ev told him firmly.

                “Okay, so what about me then? I won’t shoot everyone around me. I’m more responsible,” Gabe immediately petitioned.

                “You are not,” Marcus objected. “I’m responsible, too!”

                “Boys, you are giving me a wrinkle. Right here,” Evelyn interjected, rubbing at a tiny frown line between her eyebrows.

                “Sorry Mom,” both boys immediately replied, trying to sound contrite.

                Ginny slipped an arm around each boy’s shoulders. “Now what happens when your mom tells you no,” she prompted.

                “We respect her decision,” Gabe said with a sigh of resignation.

                She leaned low and pulled them close, so they could both hear her whisper. “No, that means you ask your Aunt Ginny.”

                Ten minutes later they were all walking down the sidewalk back to Ev’s vehicle, the boys trailing behind as they shot their water guns at the sidewalk in front of their feet. Ginny watched Evelyn from the corner of her eye as Ev’s heels clicked emphatically against the cement with every step she took.

                “Fine, I’m sorry,” Ginny conceded.

                “No you’re not.”

                Ginny smiled at Ev’s tone of voice. “Okay, I’m not sorry I bought them the guns. I _am_ sorry that your boys haven’t developed the fine art of hitting what they aim at. Maybe you should let them play more shooting video games. How about that old school Nintendo one? Duck Hunter or something?”

                Evelyn brushed away the water trickling down her cheek. “My son accidentally shoots me in the face with a water gun that _you_ bought him, against my wishes I might add, and your solution is to have them play more video games?”

                “Well anything sounds like a bad idea if you use _that_ tone of voice.”

                “Ginny, if you don’t give me a reason to remember I like you, I may sugar load the boys, hand them puppies and lock you all in your hotel room while I go get a massage.”

                A quick glance at her friend convinced Ginny that some appeasement might be in order. “All right Ev, you can ask me one, as in a single, question and I might answer it. Maybe.”

                The petite woman’s eyes light up and she did a little happy dance right in the middle of the sidewalk. She glanced over her shoulder at the boys and then sidled up to Ginny, going so far as to hook their arms together. “So tell me how your billionaire is in bed.”

                “He’s good.”

                Evelyn growled. Honest to God, growled. “You better have an answer for me that has more than two words. You owe me descriptions.”

                “I do not. Oh my God, fine. He’s _very_ good in bed. Okay?”

                “What makes him good?”

                “Ev!”

                Evelyn shot Ginny a fierce look. “I just had my hair and make-up done this morning, Gin. I spent $200 to look perfect. Right before I got shot with water.”

                Ginny sighed. “He’s very focused, in a good way. And he’s…creative.”

                Ev squealed. “Creative how? Does he have a ‘game room’?”

                “No!”

                “Are you sure? Did you look in every room in his mansion?”

                “No, I didn’t explore his entire house.”

                “See? He might!”

                “Ev, I swear to God…”

                Evelyn leaned in closer to make sure no one could overhear the conversation, especially her nosy eight-year-old twins. “So what’s your boy toy’s freak? Everyone has one, so what’s his?”

                “Ev, he’s not my boy toy.”

                Evelyn’s eyebrows rose. “Well then, what is he?”

                A camera lens swung in front of Ginny’s face, nearly hitting her nose. The constant clicking of a camera shutter sounded like a swarm of mosquitoes. “Ginny, is it true you’re dating Mike Lawson?”

                Another camera appeared. “Are you having an affair with Blip Sanders?”

                Suddenly they were surrounded by a handful of paparazzi, all shouting questions about her relationship with Mike and Blip. Ginny felt like a fool. She should have been more prepared for paparazzi. If she would have thought about it, she might have hired a couple of bodyguards from Amelia’s go-to agency to help out. Damn it though, all she wanted to do was go for a walk with her friend and god-nephews!

                Ginny just ducked her head and sidestepped them as best as she could. They were only a block from the Sanders’ SUV; it’s not like she couldn’t survive the paps for a block. She’d done it before. She hated every single, miserable second of it, but she had done it. She had thought she was prepared for it when the press started following her when she was in AAA, but legitimate press and paparazzi were two entirely different beasts. No one could ever be prepared for the paps.

                Instead of ducking beside Ginny and just fast walking to the car, Evelyn stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and faced the cameras. “Do you have any idea,” she began.

                Ginny reached back and grabbed Ev’s hand, pulling hard so she either walked beside Ginny or was dragged along the ground beside her. “Shut up,” she hissed at Ev. “You know not to talk to them.”

                The cameramen ran beside the two women. “Who is this woman Ginny? Is this a new girlfriend? Are you bisexual? Does Mike Lawson know about this relationship?”

                Ginny quickly tried to release Evelyn’s hand, but suddenly Evelyn’s small hand had the strength of steel. She was not letting go of Ginny’s hand and short of removing her entire arm, there was nothing Ginny could do to change that.

                “Mom?”

                Both women spun around. Both Gabe and Marcus were frozen in the sidewalk, their eyes moving back and forth between the shouting men, their mom, and their Aunt Ginny.

                Ginny’s heart was in her throat. Even the more adventurous Marcus looked unsettled, but shy, sometimes even timid, Gabe looked terrified. His eyes were huge as he stared at the strangers moving their cameras towards the boys.

                “Get the boys and go home. I’ll catch a cab,” Ginny hissed at Evelyn before turning on the paps. “You will leave them alone. They’re children. It’s one thing to come after me, but you have no right to terrify kids.”

                Whether it was her words or her tone, four of the five men lowered their cameras and turned away from the boys. When the fifth one raised his camera for a shot of the two boys now clinging to their mother’s hands, one of his fellow paps pushed the camera lens down.

                “I’ve got two children,” the man shrugged. “Kids are off limits.”

                Ginny smiled. “What’s your name?”

                The man’s eyes light up. “I’m Carlos.”

                “Alright Carlos, I’ll make you a deal. You keep these guys away from the boys and I’ll give you a clip. A short clip.”

                He squinted. “Are you bullshitting me?”

                “You keep your word and I’ll keep mine.”

                Carlos shrugged. “I guess we’ll see,” he muttered before turning to address the other paparazzi. Ginny left the heated exchange and caught up to where Ev and the boys had stopped just a few feet beyond the ring of cameras.

                “Ev, go to the car. Carlos will keep the cameras away from the boys. I’ll catch a cab home.”

                Evelyn glared at Ginny. “Do you honestly think you’re the only person who has ever had to deal with paps before?” She pulled her keys out of her pocket and held them out. “Marcus, go unlock the car and both of you buckle yourselves in the back. Aunt Ginny and I will be there in a minute.”

                Marcus light up with excitement. “Cool!” He grabbed the keys from his mother’s hand and ran the half block to the car, Gabe hot on his heels. He was clicking the unlock button on the key fob the entire time until it looked like the car was trying to flash Morse code to oncoming traffic.

                Ginny waited until the boys were safely locked in the car before turning back to face the men. “Did any of you take pictures of the boys?”

                “Jonathon just decided to delete his,” Carlos told the women. One look at Jonathon and it was obvious that there had been no voluntary in that decision. “The rest of the guys didn’t take any of the kids.”

                Evelyn nodded frostily at the men. “Thank you for not further terrifying my children.”

                “Alright Carlos, what do you want to know?”

                “Who is the beautiful woman you are holding hands with?”

                Ginny internally grimaced. Of course he would ask for something that wasn’t hers to give. Ev had every right to privacy, and the last thing Ginny wanted to do was put a name on the pictures of them that were surely going to hit the internet within the next two hours.

                Evelyn squeezed Ginny’s hand. “My name is Evelyn Sanders. Blip Sanders is my husband.”

                Carlos gave both women a nod. “Thank you, ladies.”

                Ginny nodded back. “Thank you for keeping your word, Carlos.”

                Ev gave a firm tug on Ginny’s hand and Ginny moved beside her as they strolled towards the car. “Evelyn, if you squeeze my hand any harder I’m going to have both hands in a cast and then I can’t use a tampon for six weeks.”

                Ev came to an abrupt stop as she gaped up at Ginny. Then she burst out into laughter. “Girl, where do you come up with this stuff?”

                Ginny nudged Ev forward. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to use a tampon with your non-dominant hand? Go ahead and try it sometime and let me know how high up it becomes on the ‘stuff I want to avoid at all cost’ list.”

                The door opened on the SUV and Marcus came running out. “Gabe is worried,” he whispered when he was close enough. “He needed me to come make sure you were okay.”

                Ginny shook free of Ev’s hand and took Marcus’s instead. “Come on kid, let’s race your mom to the car. But it has to be a walking race because your mom has stupidly high heels on.”

                “I don’t know, Mom is really fast in high heels. She can run all the way across the kitchen before you can escape with a cookie.”

                “Your mom is kinda scary.”

                “Yeah,” Marcus sighed, the weight of the world on his young shoulders. “Especially when she catches you eating your sixth cookie before supper.”

                As Evelyn steered the SUV towards the Omni, Ginny tuned out the sound of the boys in the backseat. It was one thing for the rumors to affect her. She had been dealing with that at some level for most of her life. Sure sometimes other people, usually guys and occasionally teammates, would be part of the rumor, but it was always centered on her.

                This, though, this took rumors to a whole new level. This was spreading and encompassing more people as the tabloids tried to capitalize on her celebrity. Mike was in the middle with her, not getting as much vitriol, but feeling the effects all the same. Blip was on the periphery, and now Evelyn was, too. But now the boys had been touched by it, whether they knew it or not, and that crossed the line. She had to figure out a way to handle this, a way to either squash the rumors or focus them all back on her. Her head fell back against the headrest and she closed her eyes, her mind a frantic whirl of ideas.

*************************************************************************

 

               “I have to go back to LA tonight.”

               Mike rubbed his hand across Rachel’s back, once again marveling at how soft and smooth her skin was. “I know. When will you be back?”

               “I don’t know. I managed to squeeze in this trip between two segments I was taping, but I don’t know when I’ll have more time away.” Rachel’s tone was drowsy, her eyes at half-mast when he looked down at her. 

               “I’ve liked having you here,” Mike confessed.

               He could feel Rachel’s breath pause in her chest and he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. “This weekend has been a nice break,” she finally said.

               Mike closed his eyes in anticipation of the worse. “But…”

               “But nothing. It’s been nice to be here.”

               “Here in San Diego or here with me?”

               “Well, I do love the zoo here.”

               A snort of laughter escaped him. “You’re using me for the San Diego zoo, huh?”

               “Of course. And the free food, too.”

               “I suppose the free baseball game and great sex is just a bonus?”

               She propped herself on an elbow. “Well, you’re no San Diego Zoo, but you do have your perks.”

               Mike gave a quick tug and pulled her down onto his chest. “Perks? I’m a lot better than a perk, Rach. Admit it, I can still set you off like a firecracker.”

               Rachel looked down at Mike’s grin and rolled her eyes. “You don’t need the ego boost Mike.” He pinched her bare butt and she conceded with a smile. “Fine, I suppose you’re still decent in bed.”

               Mike’s grin widened. “Decent? I don’t think so. I believe the word you’re looking for is legendary. Or godlike, or spectacular. Any of them will be fine.”

               Rachel groaned and rested her forehead on his chest. “Oh my God, are we…”

               Mike’s phone went off and he instinctively reached for it. It was such an ingrained habit to answer that ring tone that it wasn’t until Rachel made a noise in her throat that he realized how bad of an idea it would be to answer a phone call while he’s in bed with the woman he’s trying to win back. “Sorry,” he muttered and sent the call to voice mail.

               “Who was it,” Rachel asked as she resettled on her side of the bed. Or the side of the bed he hoped she would consider hers in the near future.

               Mike hesitated a moment. “It was Baker.”

               “Baker? As in Ginny Baker?”

               “That’s the one.”

               Rachel sat up and turned to face him. “Did you need to answer that? What if she needs help?”  She slapped Mike’s hands away from where they were gliding over her bare skin.

               Mike sighed and stacked his hands behind his head. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

               “You don’t know that.”

               “Rachel, why are we talking about Baker while we’re naked in my bed?”

               Rachel sighed and ran her hand over his muscular chest. “Because I get the feeling that you’re her support system. Maybe her only support system.”

               Mike chuffed out a laugh. “Rach, Baker has plenty of people around her. She has plenty of ‘support’.” He quickly sobered when she dropped her eyes and stared at her fingers tracing circles on his abs. “What?”

               “Mike, you can be surrounded by people, yet still be lonely, still be afraid.”

               “I know,” Mike agreed quietly.

               Rachel’s startled gaze met his. “Oh,” she whispered. Then as if she caught herself softening, she pulled her hand away and rolled back to her side of the bed once more. “All I’m saying is that she might need you to help her cope with this tabloid feeding frenzy about those pictures.”

               “How are you suddenly an expert in Ginny Baker’s emotions and support system?”

               “I’m not; I’ve just got a feeling, that’s all. She reminds me a little of you, in a way.”

               Now it was Mike’s turn to let his fingers trace circles across her torso. “Are you worried that the stories might be true? That Baker and I were secretly together before she left me for Blip?”

               Rachel rolled her head towards him so he could see her eye roll. “No, I’m not.”  He leaned over and kissed her and it took a moment for Rachel to pull away. “You’re done listening, aren’t you?”

               Mike wasn’t stupid enough to answer that question. “We only have a few hours before I have to go to the park and you have to go home. Do you really want to spend the rest of your time with me talking about Baker? Who knows when you’ll be able to squeeze more secret play time into your busy schedule?”

               “Mike,” Rachel began, but her breath caught in her chest as Mike’s mouth followed the trail his fingers made. “I told you, you’re not my dirty secret.”

               “Shh,” he hushed her as his head disappeared beneath the sheets. He wanted her mind off of Baker, and he needed to forget that he was more invested in this relationship, if you could call it that, than Rachel was. “I’m about to become your very, very dirty secret.”                                           

 

                                          *******************************************************************

 

                Ginny stomped her way into the clubhouse. “Blip, I’m running away with your wife,” she announced.

                Blip looked up from his phone. “What?”

                “Yup. It says right here that she’s leaving you for me.” She held up her iPad to show the team the newest TMZ article listing “insider knowledge” about her lesbian relationship with her best friend’s wife.

                Blip reached for her iPad and started reading the article. “You’re kidding me.”

                “It says that Ev and I are serious. I sincerely hope that this won’t ruin your and my working relationship.”

                “Ginny, I’m not sure I want to hear the word relationship coming from your mouth while I’m sitting here looking at a picture of you and my wife holding hands,” Blip muttered.

                The players and staff laughed at the exchange, as she intended. Blip and Ginny exchanged a grim smile and when she headed for her cubby, he followed.

                “All right, Gin, tell me what’s really going on.”

                Ginny slumped in her chair and blew out a breath. “I went shopping with Ev and the boys,” she began.

                “That’s brave.”

                “Speaking of brave, I bought both of your boys a water gun.”

                Blip frowned. “You know they’ll get in trouble with those things.”

                Ginny smiled sheepishly. “They had them for two minutes before someone shot Ev in the face with water.”

                A slow grin spread across Blip’s face. “How much trouble were you in?”

                “ _I_ wasn’t the one that shot her,” Ginny reminded him.

                “Yeah, but you were the one that bought them the guns, so how mad was Evi?”

                A huff of laughter escaped Ginny. “I had to agree to answer questions about Noah,” she admitted.

                Blip grimaced. “And now it’s getting awkward, so let’s go back to what you were doing holding Ev’s hand.”

                “A group of photographers showed up and started taking pictures. I told Ev to take the boys to the car, but instead she marched over to them and started telling them off. I grabbed her hand to pull them away and then Ev refused to let go and then she told them her name…”

                “Woah Ginny, take a breath,” Blip interrupted. “It’s okay, I get it.”

                Ginny leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I didn’t mean to drag you all into this mess. Especially the boys.” The familiar tightness rose in her chest, the one that made breathing a little harder and made her heart beat rapidly. She fought to suppress the anxiety that threatened to choke her every time she thought of little Gabe’s expression and the fact that she had played a role, no matter how unwittingly, in his fear.

                “You know you can’t control the paparazzi, right,” Blip reminded her. “Only Evelyn has that superpower.”

                Ginny cracked a smile at that. “We’re lucky she uses it for good, not evil.”

                A cursory knock sounded on her door frame before Mike stuck his head around the corner. “Baker. What are you doing…” he paused mid question when he noticed Blip.

                Ginny watched as Blip stiffened at the appearance of his teammate. She hated how bad things were between the two, even as she acknowledged it was something those two would have to solve on their own. “Apparently I’m welcoming Blip to my threesome.”

               The memory of the shocked expression on Mike’s face kept Ginny laughing the rest of the day, and kept her sane during their night game.

               She spent the first two innings of the game leaning against the fence of the dugout watching the action with her fellow benchwarmers. Sonny was starting their last game against the D-backs and Ginny and Livan compared notes as they studied the veteran pitcher and catcher duo. Evers and Lawson had worked together for several years and it was obvious how well they meshed. Sonny never shook off one of Lawson’s calls (she was going to have to tell Sonny to do it a couple of times a game just to keep Mike’s ego in check) and Mike always adjusted his calls based on Sonny’s pitches. Tonight’s game wasn’t one of Sonny’s best; he had to fight to get his curveball to break and his fastball was a couple mph lower than normal. When Livan mentioned his observations to Ginny, she countered with insight in how Mike was compensating for that; he made sure to set up the fastballs with a changeup and kept the lefties nervous of Sonny’s slider, which rode in high and tight on them.

               When she couldn’t procrastinate it any longer, she drudged her way down the tunnel to the trainer’s room where she spent the next twenty minutes nearly in tears as Rita went through gentle stretches on her shoulder and arm. Rita was the best in the business but no one could make rehab stretching anything less than miserable. The forced immobilization of her arm was starting to play hell with her back as muscles used to moving freely were limited by mobility and carrying the extra weight of the cast. As much as she wished otherwise, the constant pain in her arm and new pain in her shoulder and back were wearing on her mentally, physically and emotionally. It also gave her a new amount of respect for guys like her captain who had to fight through chronic pain every day to play the game they loved.

                Ginny kept her attention determinedly focused on their game playing in the trainer’s room, at first to distract herself from the pain and then to keep her entertained during her shoulder and back icing. She watched Sonny give up two hits and a walk in the fourth, yet manage to get out of the inning with only one run scored due to a timely double play.

                There was a cursory knock on the door and Livan strode in. “You should stop playing around and get back in the dugout,” he said in lieu of a greeting.

                Ginny snorted. “What are you doing in here? I’m sure you’re supposed to be watching every move Lawson makes so you have a chance of being a good catcher when you grow up.”

                Livan clutched his chest. “You’re so cruel. Maybe I missed you being out there and I just can’t watch baseball without you,” he said dramatically. When Ginny laughed out loud, Livan shrugged. “Fine. I had to pee and it’s frowned upon if you do it in the dugout during a nationally televised game.”

                Ginny rolled her eyes but before she could respond the roar of the crowd brought both of their gazes to the television. Omar hit a standing triple to start off the inning but instead of raving about his .406 batting average since the trade deadline, the announcers talked about her. They talked about the tabloid rumors and how it must be wearing on the team, even if the players didn’t talk about it. Ginny clenched her jaw as the tv showed clips of her and Livan leaning against the fence shoulder to shoulder as they watched the game. Their heads would tip towards each other as they talked. Of course it was because the stadium was so loud, but after the announcers commented on it Ginny could see how the tabloids and haters could call it almost intimate. It didn’t matter that the exact same motions were happening at every professional game in the league at the same time, it was the fact that she was involved that made it “interesting”.

                “This is bullshit,” Livan bit out and moved to shut off the television.

                “Just leave it,” Ginny told him as she began to unwind the wrap holding the ice packs to her body.

                “They shouldn’t be saying this and you shouldn’t hear it,” Livan argued.

                “I need to hear what they’re saying so I know what questions I’ll be asked,” Ginny countered. She kept her gaze focused on the wraps, purposely not letting Livan see that for all of her brave words, she really wanted to shut off the announcers’ voices, too.

                “And if you look, you can see the way her teammates are drifting away from her in the dugout.”

                Ginny’s eyes snapped upwards towards the television in time to watch herself walk up to lean on the dugout fence already full of players doing the same. She said something to Livan and he slid sideways to give her just enough room to rest an arm along the top of the fence. Several players exchanged glances and two of the men next to her casually drifted away and moved further down the dugout. The Ginny on the tv screen didn’t notice, her attention fully fixed on the field, and the inning ended shortly thereafter, leaving the dugout crammed with the newly expanded roster of 40 players. Salvi shoved into a spot next to her and the replay cut off, the tv once again showing the two commentators as they continued their point.

                Suddenly, unwrapping the rest of her ice bags and carefully disposing of the wrap and bags took her full attention. Then she carefully stretched and shook out her limbs and even pulled the rubber band out of her hair only to immediately put her hair back in a ponytail. Eventually she ran out of ways to stall for time and turned to leave. Livan hadn’t moved from his spot in front of the door, his arms crossed against his muscled chest and his legs braced apart.

                “Move, Duarte,” Ginny ordered.

                “They’re defending you,” he told her. “The announcers. They’re calling bullshit on the players for doing it.”

                Ginny took a chance and met Livan’s eyes. She found no signs of pity, thank God, but there was definitely annoyance. “It would have been a lot more helpful if they hadn’t pointed it out on national tv.” She forced a shrug.

                “You want me to kill them?”

                “Kill who? The announcers? Our own fool teammates?” Ginny shook her head in pretend exasperation. “You have to specify before you make these kinds of offers Livan.”                                       

                “All of them.”

                Ginny laughed. “No need to become a serial killer on my behalf Papi,” she told him, giving him a pat on the arm as she brushed past him.

                Livan followed her across the clubhouse and into the tunnel. “How can you be so calm about this? Why aren’t you angry?”

                Ginny turned on him. “You think I’m not angry? It does me no good to scream at the world, punch my teammates, go on a Twitter tirade, or any of the other things that people get to do when they’re pissed off. That will only make it _worse._ What part of me being different don’t you understand? I can’t do any of that or my ass will be out of MLB faster than you can blink! Now that I’m on the DL, I’m only here because I bring good press to the Padres and MLB, and at this moment I’m not even doing that. If I punch some of the guys like I want to, not only will that make everything worse, it will bring the media down on my head because no matter who starts it, it will always be my fault.” Ginny managed to cut herself off before she could continue her rant because even she could hear the bitterness in her voice. She never, _never,_ let herself think, for even a second, about how unfair it all could be, how her lifetime’s work could be taken away in an instant if she fell off of the tightrope she was always walking.

                Livan’s gaze moved behind her at the same time she heard someone clear his throat. Every muscle in her body tensed and she closed her eyes, trying to control her emotions. Of course there would be witnesses to her tirade. It was a damn shame that she had to learn the hard way to keep her mouth shut, to keep her emotions out of public view.

                “If you’re done with your tantrum, you’re missing a fine rally out there.”

                " _Eres un maldito idiota_ , Lawson,” Livan bit out. The Cuban turned his gaze back to Ginny. “You can’t get in trouble if I punch someone on my own. Come on,” he coaxed with a tiny smile curving the edge of his mouth, “you know there’s at least one _cabron_ you want me to hurt.” A hard look over Ginny’s shoulder made it clear who he wanted to go after first.

                “If I want someone hurt, I’ll do it myself.”

                “But handcuffs won’t look good with your amazing cast,” Livan teased.

                “Handcuffs won’t look good on you either,” she countered.

                Livan flashed a full grin, dimples showing and eyes flashing with good humor. “Mami, everything looks good on me.”

                Ginny felt her heart race and her stomach flutter because, damn it, Livan was unbelievably hot when he was feeling playful. She wasn’t crossing a line by admitting that to herself; most of the team probably thought the same thing. “Yeah, I bet you’ll be the prettiest guy in the entire prison block in your orange jumpsuit.” When Livan laughed Ginny found herself smiling in return.

                “If you two are done flirting, you both can get your asses out there and at least pretend to be good teammates to the others.”

                Livan was in Mike’s face before Ginny could even pick her jaw up off the floor in response to Mike’s statement. She turned in time to see Livan give the veteran catcher a two handed shove to both shoulders, rocking Mike back a step. Livan let out a tirade in Spanish that made it crystal clear what he was saying, whether you spoke the language or not. Mike gave him a hard shove back and stepped in until they were nose to nose.

                Ginny tried to shove her way between them, finally succeeding when a sharp elbow to the ribs backed Livan up a step. “What the hell,” she began.

                “Lawson, let’s go! I need a catcher,” Sonny hollered down the tunnel.

                “We’ll discuss this later,” Lawson snarled at Livan before walking down the tunnel, shoulder checking the young catcher as he passed.

                “What was that,” Ginny asked torn between disbelief and anger.

                “That was your captain being an asshole,” Livan bit out.

                “Leave him alone,” Ginny instinctively defended Mike.

                Livan stepped closer until she had to tip her head up to meet his eyes under the brim of her hat. “I know he’s your captain, and he’s been your catcher since you came into the league. I get that he’s your favorite person. But you need to stop blindly following him because when he treats you like shit, you allow it. It’s like you don’t think he can do anything wrong.”

                Ginny’s jaw tightened against her need to scream at Livan. “I don’t follow anyone blindly,” she said when she was finally in control of her voice.

                Livan’s eyes met hers while he studied her, like he was trying to read her mind. Just when Ginny was ready to push past him, Livan sighed at gave her a small smile and, damn it, it looked like a pitying smile. “Yes, you do Mami.”

                Before she could argue or punch him in the throat, he threw an arm around her shoulders and guided her down the tunnel. “Come on, you’re going to have to keep me from starting something that will get us all suspended.” He dropped his arm when she gave him a sharp punch to his rock hard abs, but continued talking.  “Trust me, the guys left in AAA aren’t as good as the September call ups, and that should scare you because the call ups are terrible. It’s up to you to keep the Padres’ hopes alive.”

                As soon as she claimed a spot on the bench, Livan plopped down beside her and began dissecting the game plan and pitch calls. Ginny tried hard to ignore the ebb and flow of players as the innings changed, but she was always subconsciously aware of what players would sit next to her and what ones avoided her like the plague. Some of the tension left her body when the guys that she considered friends didn’t hesitate to plop down beside her or include her in a discussion. As far as she could tell, only a handful of guys seemed to be actively avoiding her. It hurt more than it should that two of them were guys she’d been on a team with, either the Padres or their AAA club, for most of the season.

                Livan refused to let her stay angry, and Lord knew she was plenty angry. He made observations about the team, some of them so outrageously wrong that she couldn’t stop herself from disagreeing. They talked, analyzed, laughed and disagreed through the game until Voohries made a comment about how he had never heard Livan speak so much at once and how he hoped someone could make the guy shut up.

                Her laughter died when she saw Lawson out of the corner of her eye. He was in the corner of the dugout, stripping off his catcher’s gear for his at-bat. His attention wasn’t on his actions; it was on glaring at her. To be fair, he could have been glaring at Livan, Blip, the camera guy behind the dugout, or anyone else around her, but it was her eyes he met and held, and it was Ginny that saw his minute head shake, like he couldn’t believe her behavior. Livan’s words rang in her mind as Mike turned his back on her and grabbed his bat.  

                Ginny quietly stewed as Lawson’s strike out ended the inning and the team trotted out for the top of the ninth. She felt stupid for letting herself believe what everyone said, that the frenzy would disappear quickly on its own. She should have known better, she _did_ know better. And as she sat on the bench quietly kicking her own ass, an idea came to her. It was either going to be a spectacular hit or an epic disaster, but either way at least she was taking charge of the situation. It was long past overdue that she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has much more angst and drama then I've ever written. Hopefully I did it justice because there's no way a rumor like this wouldn't have started at some point in the show if they really wanted to keep it as realistic as possible. Let me know if you loved it, hated it, or fell asleep half way through.


	13. Holding it together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny tries to silence the rumors and scandals once and for all. Told from Ginny's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while, and I'm sorry. Hopefully this chapter will make up for the wait. Pardon any typos you find, I wanted to get this out asap.
> 
> For Kitty, who gave me the best quote ever.

“My office. Now.”

 Lawson growled his order as he brushed past them in the crowded tunnel and stormed his way into the clubhouse.

“You know, it almost sounds like he’s angry,” Livan told Ginny _sotto voce_.

“No, he was angry before. Now he’s in danger of having his head explode,” Ginny corrected. Several of the players around them snorted in agreement.

“So what would happen if we didn’t follow him and just went home instead?”

The surrounding players stared in disbelief. “You don’t ignore the team captain,” Salvi warned Livan.

Livan shrugged. “He’s not my captain. I didn’t vote him in. Why should I follow his rules?”

 _Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,_ Ginny thought to herself. This was going to be the moment when Livan’s mouth finally got him killed. Sure enough, the men around her looked like they were ready to commit bodily harm. Several guys ahead of them actually stopped walking and turned around to glare at Livan for his heresy.

Rarely was a team captain voted on, it was just something that happened naturally. Many times a veteran became a _de_ _facto_ captain simply by mentoring the younger players, quietly managing clubhouse behavior, and knowing when and how to rally the team. The captain was expected to be the rock that the entire team could be built on. Even now, when Blip and Mike had their ugly public fight and Blip had nearly threatened Mike’s leadership,  the team still trusted him to know how best to handle something like this.

Ginny squeezed their still joined hands until Livan looked at her with a scowl, hopefully in too much pain to say anything else. “I don’t care, you’re coming with me,” she told him.

Livan tightened his hand around hers just enough that it stung. She took the hint and eased her grip now that he was paying attention to her silent message. “And why is that?”

“Because I’m a girl. I can’t go anywhere by myself.”

Several of the guys instantly objected and, once Ginny heard their instinctive responses, her heart warmed. Someone actually said “Girls can do anything they want” before catching the obvious irony of the statement.

“Hold on, I thought that rule only applied to the bathroom. Girls can’t go to the bathroom by themselves,” Salvi interjected.

“Seriously,” Hinkley asked in disbelief.

“Trust us,” Butch confirmed. “Between his three little girls and my three teenagers, I can promise you that rule is absolutely true.”

As one, the guys turned to look at Ginny for the final ruling. Ginny shrugged. “He’s right. It’s the law.”

“T minus twenty minutes until the reporters are allowed in,” Sonny called from across the clubhouse.

The knot of players surrounding Ginny and Livan dissolved as the men moved to their locker to strip and shower before the doors opened. Some guys didn’t care who saw them naked, but most guys wanted to at least be dripping water and not sweat when they were on camera. Being both clean and fully dressed was something not usually achieved without a significant amount of hustle and only Ginny met both goals regularly.

“Let’s get this over with,” she muttered to Livan. “I want to be gone before the press arrives.” She tried to shake free of his hand but Livan wouldn’t loosen his hold.

“If I’m putting up with this bullshit, I’m at least getting my money’s worth,” he told her with a scowl as he let her tug him towards the equipment room.

“Quit whining. The only reason you played along was you knew how much it would piss Lawson off.”

“That’s not true,” Livan disagreed.

Ginny chuffed out a breath in disbelief. “Oh really?”

“Really,” Livan insisted, adding a firm head nod for emphasis.

“Alright, then why did you go along with it?”

Livan shrugged.

“Oh, no you don’t. Tell me why.”

“Because.”

Ginny’s feet slowed on their own, bringing their pace to a crawl as she moved towards Mike’s “office”. In all honesty, she wanted to avoid this lecture and her feet were happy to help her procrastinate. “Because why?”

“Because I said so.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow as she turned to face him. “You can’t pull that. Only parents can get away with that, so try again.”

Livan began walk her backwards, using their joined hands as leverage to steer her towards the door. The players, some partially dressed, some barely remembering to wrap a towel around their waist in her presence, scurried around them and paid no attention to Ginny and Livan’s conversation. “Hmm, I guess you could call me your daddy if that kind of thing works for you,” he mused.

“Ugh, why are you like this? You’re such a freak.”

“ _Mami_ , you have no idea,” he responded archly.  Suddenly he gave her his full-on smile and a wink. She couldn’t stop smiling back at him, her annoyance no match for his dimples.

Ginny could tell by Livan’s body language the minute he made eye contact with Mike. Their captain must have become impatient and opened the equipment room door to shout for them to hurry up. Suddenly Livan’s teasing tone turned almost provocative, his body language changed from playful to edgy. His free hand came up to her hip and he used both hands to shorten the distance between their bodies. His entire body tightened in anticipation, but of what she didn’t know.

“Everyone has some freak in them. Tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine,” he said, modulating his tone so his words wouldn’t reach beyond the three of them.

 “Let go of me,” she ordered, taking care to keep her voice low enough the thumping clubhouse music would prevent anyone else, including Lawson, from hearing her.

The Cuban’s eyes lowered to hers. “Why? You’re easy to hold.” At her disbelieving look he shrugged. “Plus, it really pisses off Lawson. Don’t look yet, but I think his hair is about to catch fire.”

She tried to twist her hand free of his but he held tight. That left her with few options unless she wanted to hit him with her cast (which would hurt like hell), or kick him in the shin (which would be embarrassing as hell). Ginny narrowed her eyes in warning. “I’m not a toy for you to tease Lawson with.”

A furrow formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t think that,” he told her.

“Everything you’re doing in this moment is designed to piss him off. Since it’s my hand you’re griping and my body you’re holding on to, it feels like you’re trying to drag me into a game to make him jealous.”

Livan dropped his hand from her hip and stepped back but kept a grip on her hand. When she raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. “Maybe I like holding your hand.”

“All right you two, let’s go,” Blip told them. Using some sort of superpower that all parents seemed to have, his hands found the back of their neck and he steered them into the equipment room. Ginny was reluctantly impressed at how easily he managed to move two professional athletes with seemingly no effort at all.

Mike stood in the center of the room with his arms crossed and legs braced wide, his body posture screaming fury, but his voice was deceptively even when he spoke. “What was that all about?”

“What was what about? The win? Your 3 strike outs? The wild monkey sex in the trainer’s room? Your team acting like assholes on national tv? Us holding hands? You’ll need to be more specific Lawson,” Livan replied with a shrug guaranteed to drive Mike crazy.

Livan’s response made Ginny want to smack him upside his head. Why did he always have to make things worse for himself? Already Mike’s face had hardened and his cheeks flushed like they did right before he tore into someone.

“And in baseball news, the scandal surrounding Ginny Baker took on a new tone tonight,” Rachel Patrick’s voice announced through the clubhouse speakers. All four players instinctively turned and looked at the television in the equipment room. Someone had turned on the news and transferred the sound to the clubhouse speakers. Since no one voluntarily watched sports news in the clubhouse (who wants to watch themselves and their team being torn apart by people who had never held a baseball in their lives), it was a sign that something important was being talked about.

Ginny could feel Livan’s eyes on her as she fought the sudden rise of dread in her chest. “Turn it off,” she ordered. “Now.”  She needed to shut it off quickly, so the entire Padres organization didn’t witness her being ostracized by her teammates. Eventually they’d see it on tv, but not with her there, feeling the righteous smugness from those who believed she’d never belonged in baseball or, even worse, the pity from the guys that knew she just wanted to fit in and be seen as a legitimate ball player.

Ginny moved towards the door, ready to rip the wires from the clubhouse wall if necessary to get the news story to stop playing. Using the speed that made him an All-Star centerfielder, Blip was leaning his body against the door before she could get to it.

“Blip…” Ginny warned him.

Rachel Patrick’s voice came back on. “As you can see, it appears that some of Ginny Baker’s own teammates are going out of their way to avoid her, and some people are suggesting it’s due to the tabloid rumors.”

Ginny watched as Blip’s eyes locked onto the television, presumably to watch the replay of her fellow Padres avoiding her. Part of her wanted to punch Blip for not letting her stop the news coverage being piped into the clubhouse, while another small part of her wanted to hide in a corner, eyes closed and ears covered so she didn’t have to relive the humiliation of the video again and again. But instead she did what she always did in miserable situations; she straightened her spine, gathered her composure, and pasted on the faint smile that had become second nature. Once again, she was Ginny Baker™, the groundbreaking female athlete that let nothing bother her, not embarrassment, not rumors, not feeling like an outsider.  That Ginny had confidence in spades and wouldn’t let something petty like this affect her life.

She turned and watched the screen as the clip of her teammates walking away from her ended and Rachel’s face reappeared. “Those fans that stayed to see the comeback win for the Padres witnessed Ginny and backup catcher Livan Duarte holding hands as they went through post game congratulations with their teammates on the field.” The replay simply showed Livan and her holding hands as they left the dugout. Ginny’s mind filled in the details that the cameras couldn’t see.

Livan didn’t object when she grabbed hold of his hand as they made their way to the mound for congratulatory hi-fives and butt smacks to celebrate the desperately needed Padres win. His startled gaze met hers but just when Ginny worried he was going to shake loose of her grip, he gave her his lethal dimpled grin, the one that he wore when he was going to be a shit, and squeezed her hand in reassurance. It wasn’t until the players went to hi-five Ginny that they noticed where her uninjured hand was. There was no doubting that the guys were surprised and Ginny mentally braced herself for any negative reactions. It was a nationally televised game and after this stunt, every single reaction of every single player would be dissected for hints of disapproval.

The guys surprised her. Butch raised an eyebrow before patting her on the hat as he passed by. If he patted Livan’s hat a little harder than hers, like maybe with the side of his fist, surely that was just a sign of affection. Okay, even she couldn’t buy that lie. It was a sign that Butch was watching Livan and knew he was probably up to something, but was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Sonny and Voohries nearly laughed themselves silly and Blip’s eyes went wide with shock for a mere second before he smiled in disbelief. “Girl, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he muttered as he passed by.

Rachel’s voice pulled her back to the moment. “It remains to be seen if this was done in fun, as a part of rookie initiation rituals, or as a statement on the inequality in treatment between female and male athletes. We will bring you responses from Ginny Baker and the Padres as they become available.”

The news went to a commercial break and the sound clicked off, to be replaced by clubhouse music. It was Butch’s turn to pick, so it was mostly country music with some ‘80s hits thrown in the mix. The four players stared at each other in silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on,” Mike finally asked.

“The rumors have been going on for a week, Lawson,” Ginny pointed out.

He scowled in irritation. “You know what I mean.”

Blip interceded. “How many of the guys have treated you like that?”

“You mean just in the last week or since I made the Bigs?”

“Baker.” That’s all Lawson needed to say to show his impatience.

“We saw it on the broadcast in the PT room,” Livan answered for her.

Mike raised an eyebrow. “During the game? So that’s what…”

A pounding on the door interrupted him. “Five minutes until the press are allowed in,” Sonny shouted at them.

The three men all stared at her. “Do you want to talk to reporters,” Mike asked.

Ginny didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Then go. We’ll be continuing this discussion later,” he warned her.

Ginny shifted her weight from leg to leg. “Do you need me to talk to the guys tonight?”

“We’re good,” Blip answered for Mike.

She bit her lip in indecision before abruptly turning away from them all. She didn’t want to know if Lawson was going to tell the team what to, or not to, say in response to the hundreds of questions they’d be asked regarding tonight’s game. She was DVR-ing the game at home, so after she calmed down and had a couple of beers to steady her nerves, she’d watch the interviews herself.

She held tight to her calm and cracked open the door. “I’m coming in boys, so cover up!” Several voices called back and she waited fifteen seconds so anyone naked had the time to cover up with a towel before throwing the door open and walking out. She carefully kept her eyes away from the lockers and focused on the door to her cubby.

“Just passing through, guys,” she told them as she crossed the room. Anyone watching her would see a calm and collected Ginny strolling across the clubhouse to grab her stuff and dodge the press like she had done every night the past week. Only she would know how uncomfortably close to furious tears she was, walking through a place that had begun to feel like home. “I’ll see you all tomorrow,” she told them as she grabbed her bag from her closet and strode towards the side door that would let her bypass the waiting press.

“Baker, wait up,” Salvi called out. She heard his running footsteps approach her as she reached the door.  The firstbaseman had his backpack thrown over one shoulder and his keys dangled from his fingers. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

“It’s not necessary,” Ginny told him.

Salvi gasped in surprise. “But you’re a girl! You can’t go anywhere by yourself, remember? It’s the law.” He grinned and gave her a soft shoulder check. Laughter escaped her as she checked him back slightly harder.

“I see how it is,” she told him with a smile. “You’re going to be throwing my words in my face whenever you can, aren’t you?”

“The good Lord knows I don’t get a chance to do it at home,” was his grumbled response.

“So how did you convince Skip to let you skip the reporters?” They walked side by side down the utilitarian hallway and skirted around various grounds equipment and empty beer kegs.

“I have a sick kid at home. My wife was up all night with her, so now it’s my turn.”

Ginny glanced over. “Nothing too bad, I hope.”

“Nah, just a cold. The oldest brought it home from school and now the baby has it.”

“Wait, didn’t they just go back to school a few weeks ago?”

Salvi gave a shudder. “Kids are germ factories. I don’t know how they do it, but they’re always sick. Don’t get me wrong, I love my girls, but sometimes I just want to follow them around the house with Lysol and disinfect everything they touch.”

Ginny shook her head at him. “There goes your Father-Of-The-Year award.”

As they approached the door at the end of the hallway, Ginny could hear the sound of voices swell. By taking this side exit she had avoided the press, but it put her smack dab in the middle of the fans and family waiting for the players to exit the building. Ginny grimaced at the noise. “I can go first,” she offered. “That way, you can escape unnoticed while all the cameras are on me.”

“I swear to God, you just sounded as narcissistic as Lawson.”

“I’m trying to be nice and that makes me a narcissist,” Ginny asked in disbelief.

“I’m pretty sure all cameras will not be on you. You’ll have some,” he conceded, “but definitely not all of them. Don’t you know how many fans I’ve gotten since the Body Issue came out? I have to fight the groupies off.”

Ginny laughed. “You poor baby, it’s so hard being loved for your body.”

“It’s a burden,” Salvi agreed with a put-upon sigh.

Salvi stopped with one hand on the door and held out his other hand to Ginny. When she just stared at him, he made an impatient gesture. “Come on Baker, I need to get home.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking to hold my hand?”

“What, I’m not good enough? You could hold Duarte’s hand on national tv and not bat an eye, but you can’t hold mine in front of some fans? Not nice, Baker.”

Beneath the teasing, Ginny thought Salvi sounded almost… hurt. “Fine, I’ll hold your hand. I get to go out the door first, though.”

“Whatever you say, G-Rose.”

 

**************************************

 

“Hey baby, I saw the game.”

Ginny cradled the phone against her cheek as she pulled off her leggings. “Which part of the game Noah?”

“All of it.”

“Oh.” She was silent for a minute. “I didn’t think you liked baseball.”

“I don’t dislike it, I just don’t know much about it. I’m trying to learn. Do you know anyone that could tutor me?”

Ginny smiled. “I might know a person that could help. There’s always Wikipedia, too.”

Noah chuckled. “Do you want to do something tonight? I know it’s late, but what about an ice cream run? I could really use a waffle cone. I promise to have you in bed by midnight.”

“Have me in bed, huh?” Ginny really was tired, but an ice cream cone sounded so good right now.

“I promise, I have no ulterior motives. I have a meeting at 7:00 am, and I know you go in early for PT,” he coaxed.

“Ice cream sounds perfect,” Ginny told him.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” he told her.

“Do you want me to meet you in the lobby,” she asked as she quickly wiggled out of her shirt.

“What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t pick you up at your door,” Noah gasped in mock horror.

Half an hour later she and Noah were strolling hand and hand down the sidewalk. The two had ignored the photographers camped outside of her hotel and after the paps got their photos, they quickly disappeared to sell them to online sites, leaving Ginny and Noah largely ignored in the thinning crowds.

“How are you holding up,” Noah quietly asked.

“I’m fine,” was her immediate response.

Noah turned his head to look at her. “No really, how are you doing?”

Ginny took a minute to consider, really assess her emotions, before answering. If there was one person she could be honest with, it was Noah. “I’m hanging in there. It’s not like I haven’t been under a media microscope before.”

“But…,” Noah prompted.

She didn’t want to admit it out loud, as if somehow that would make it worse, more embarrassing, more painful. But the team psychiatrist said to not be afraid to trust people and that true friends would help manage the pressure. “But seeing my teammates avoiding me, especially on national television, was hard. It’s happened before, but for some reason I thought I was past that now.”

“I can only imagine,” he told her. After a beat of silence, he asked, “It was your idea to hold hands with the other player, wasn’t it?”

“How do you know?”

Noah gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Because that’s exactly the take charge attitude you have. And I don’t think there’s a person on the planet brave enough to grab your hand without permission.”

“You did.”

Noah grinned. “Besides me, of course.  I feared missing my chance with you only slightly more than having you hit me with your fastball.”

Ginny laughed, as he intended. “You’re very brave man.”

“You have no idea. I was really worried about your fastball.”

****************

 

“Thanks for picking me up, Marsallis.”

The big man glanced over at her before focusing on the bumper to bumper traffic. There was a huge gathering in the convention center- an international genetics conference, of all things- and the Gas Lamp District was packed with tourists, cabs, and the few poor suckers that hadn’t check Google Maps before leaving the house.

“Ginny, I was going to pick you up this morning no matter what. It just worked out well for both of us that you called before I got to your door.”

“Oh you were, were you?”

Marsallis smiled at the windshield. “My partner Ian saw the game last night and was ready to storm the stadium to defend your honor. I was already planning on picking you up, but trust me when I say I saved the stadium and several lives by taking you to breakfast this morning.”

Ginny laughed. “I really have to meet Ian. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“You’re going to get along great, and that’s why I want to keep you two apart. You’ll either change the world or destroy it if you join forces.”

Ginny laughed again. “I’d accuse you of wanting the publicity from holding hands with me, but I’m sure you get plenty of your own at home.”

Marsallis snorted. “And then some. You think everyone knows you here? Literally every single person on the big island knows me. Nearly all of New Zealand knows me, which is good because I love those crazy kiwis. Much of Australia knows me and that’s not good because, for a laid back country, those Wallabies can sure hold a grudge.”

“How did you manage to anger all of a country that’s famous for being laid back?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Tell me.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, I really, really do.”

With a hefty sigh of relief Marsallis pulled to a stop in front of the players’ entrance. “Here you go, safe and sound. Call me if you want a ride home.”

Ginny’s phone buzzed to indicate a text at nearly the same time as Marsallis’s phone made a foghorn sound. “Ian thinks he’s funny,” he offered as an explanation for the alert. He quickly scanned the text before flipping the phone around to show Ginny. “Looks like we’re famous. The pics of our breakfast are already up.”

There was a moment of silence as Ginny read her text. “Mike says to tell you hi,” she relayed.

Marsallis put his car in park and looked in his rearview mirror. “Is that him pulling up behind us?”

Ginny didn’t look up from her phone. “No chance, he’s still in bed. He never gets up before 10.”

The big man turned in his seat to stare at her. “And how would you know that?”

“Because he stops harassing me around two in the morning and doesn’t start again until sometime around eleven.”

“What did he say last night about the whole teammate issue?”

Ginny shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “He didn’t call last night.”

There was a beat of silence before Marsallis asked, “Does he usually call?”

“No, not always,” Ginny quickly said, unable to stop herself. She ignored Livan’s voice in her head telling her that she was defending Lawson’s behavior again.

Marsallis made a thoughtful sound but let it go. “Well, whatever he said to the team was effective. Not a single man answered a question about you.” A sudden grin spread across his face. “The reporters finally stopped asking those questions after the third player walked away. Reporters may be pushy, but they’re not stupid. You can’t write a story if no player will talk to you.” Ginny smiled, but said nothing. She didn’t know if Lawson had said anything to the team or if they players had decided on their own and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. All she knew was that her teammates, who had refused to answer questions about her during this whole debacle, had upped their game in her defense.

“So who are you playing tonight,” Marsallis asked.

“The Cubs. A former teammate is a pitcher on the staff.” She smiled to herself as she unlocked the door and stepped out. She leaned back in to grab her bag. “Thanks for breakfast and the ride. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem, little one. It’s always fun to sit down with someone who can out eat me.”

Ginny smiled to herself as she headed into the cool shade of the interior of Petco. She really was looking forward to talking to Tommy, although there was no power under the sun that would make her admit it to him. She had heard his wife and son hadn’t moved with him to Chicago, so there was a good chance they would be at night’s game. She owed a visit to his son, and as crazy as it was, she was looking forward to meeting his family. With any luck, they would give her all kinds of new material to torment him with.

 She entered the clubhouse without any hesitation because she was always the first person in and today she was even earlier. She wanted to have her, admittedly very modified, workout done before Rita came in for their PT appointment.

“Rookie.” Ginny nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Mike’s voice. She spun around and found him sitting on the chair in front of his locker, legs stretched out and arms behind his head like he was relaxing on a beach somewhere.

“What are you doing here,” Ginny asked when she could finally talk around her pounding heart. “You’re never out of bed until eleven and you never make it here before batting practice. Do you have an early appointment with Ed?”

“I couldn’t sleep because my phone kept alerting every time a story about you began trending. Not to mention everyone and their brother was texting to either hound me with questions or letting me know what you were doing at any given moment.”

“You could have shut your phone off,” Ginny pointed out.

“No, I couldn’t. I’m the captain and the players need to know they can reach me if they need to. The last time I shut my phone off for twelve straight hours, two players got pulled into a brawl at a bar and a rookie had a trip to the ER because his buddy forgot that designated drivers aren’t supposed to drink and ran his car into a ditch. My guy ended up with a concussion, broken nose and a hefty stint on the DL.”

Ginny stopped to consider his words. “It must be rough babysitting twenty-three grown men that still act like teenagers.” She gave a shrug. “I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks.” She opened the door to her changing room and was half way through the door when Lawson’s words stopped her in her tracks.

“Keeping an eye on you has been harder than the past five years put together,” he called out.

Ginny dropped her bag in her cubby, mentally debating whether she should respond to his comment. The odds were good she was going to end up angry, but now that he said the words she wanted, no needed, to know what he meant. The Padres had experienced some rough patches in the previous years, including player issues, and the thought of him saying she was more trouble than an arrested player or one accused of PED usage, bothered her. She shook her head at herself and tried to find the self-control to not ask.

“Don’t you want to know why?”

Ginny briefly closed her eyes before turning to face Mike, who was casually leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed.

“Fine. Why,” she reluctantly asked.

“Because the rest of the team _respects_ my role as their captain,” he said. His body posture remained relaxed but his eyes were focused on her, his expression intense, his voice hard. This was the Mike she saw on game day, when the team was down by one run and a player made a costly error or when she kept shaking off his calls. This was the Padres’ captain, the guy that tried to make 24 individuals into a team.

“I have always respected your role as captain,” Ginny defended hotly.

Mike dropped his relaxed act and took a step towards her. “No, you’ve respected my role as a veteran. That’s very different from a captain. My job is to help a player, whether it’s find a new agent, get them a place to crash when their wife kicks them out of the house, or pick them up at the club at two in the morning because they’re so obnoxiously drunk the bouncer is going to call the cops. That’s what I do. Yet you’ve never asked for help, even when you needed it. You’ll just let yourself drown instead of reaching out one time, just one goddamned time, for help.”

“I don’t need your help. I can handle things on my own,” she bit out.

“Oh really? How did that work in Las Vegas? I mean, you definitely became a YouTube sensation, but you nearly shot your career to shit instead of admitting you were overwhelmed. Which,” he raised his voice to override her interruption, “is normal. Every star in pro sports has gone through that shock.”

“I’m not every player, Lawson,” Ginny argued.

“No shit, Baker. You’re dealing with a whole bunch of crap that I’ve never gone through, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help. I’ve gone through crap that you’ll never go through, yet I’ve never thought you’re incapable of understanding it. All you had to do was say something about what was going on in the clubhouse.”

“I don’t need to tattle. It only makes things worse.”

“It’s not tattling, this is something that’s affecting the whole team. And what do you mean it makes things worse?”

Ginny ignored his question to go on the offensive. “You knew how bad the media coverage was getting. You just ignored it.”

“Baker, you have to learn to ignore ninety-nine percent of the stuff that the media or tabloids will say. The trouble is figuring out what stories are in the one percent that has to be addressed.” He took a step closer, forcing her to tip her head up to meet his gaze. “Any time something from the outside comes into the clubhouse, I should know about it. The minute it begins to negatively affect the team, it becomes my business to figure out how to best handle it for everyone involved. So the minute you felt the guys treating you differently, you should have brought it to me.”

“You knew about it, you just didn’t want to look around and really see the fallout,” Ginny bit out. “You were in the same meeting with me and Blip, so don’t pretend you didn’t know how serious it was getting.” She was nearly choking on her anger. There was no way Mike could have been oblivious to the rumors and press coverage; his name was linked to it and he undoubtedly had Google alerts set on his name. And he should have known that if the FO wanted to talk about it, things were getting serious. And yet he hadn’t reached out to her with advice, hadn’t even called to ask if she was okay.

Mike continued talking like he didn’t hear a word she said. “Why didn’t you tell me this was happening,” he asked again.

“If I ran to you every time someone was a jerk, we’d be together 24/7. Then they’d be talk about favoritism or grumblings that I’m getting special treatment, or that,” she gave a mock gasp, “I’m screwing the captain.”

Mike scowled at her words. “Listen rookie,” he began.

“You’re not going to listen to anything I say, so let me just finish your argument for you.” Ginny interrupted, her voice rising. “You’re angry that I don’t treat you like a captain, you’re angry I didn’t tattle as soon as the guys were rude, you’re angry that I was right when I said this was going to get ugly, and you’re angry I didn’t run to you and beg you to solve the problem. There, argument over. Now you can get out of my closet.”

Mike’s shook his head at her. “Baker.”

“I’m done arguing, Lawson. Just leave so I can change. I have a workout to do before Rita gets here.” Her cubby was so small it took effort to slide past him without touching so she could make it to the door. “I’ll see you later,” she told him as she motioned him towards the clubhouse.

Her captain cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his short hair. “I’m not angry.”

Ginny scoffed in disbelief and once again motioned at the open door.

“I’m not,” he insisted. He shifted his weight and stared at her for a minute before rubbing the back of his neck. Ginny knew his tells, knew he was working up to telling her something so she waited, raising an eyebrow when he finally met her gaze.

“You should have trusted me to help you. I’m your captain. Yeah, it’s been junior high awkward lately, but you should have trusted me as a friend, too.”

Her eyes widened in shock. Not in a million years would she have guessed that Mike Lawson would be upset because she didn’t trust him enough. She couldn’t think, couldn’t process the surprise fast enough to offer a decent response. Undoubtedly she would think of a hundred things to say when she was lying in bed tonight, but all she could say was, “You haven’t been much of a friend lately.”

 “What are you talking about,” he scoffed.

“How about last night and your tirade when you saw Livan and I talking in the clubhouse? You know, the one where you accused me of throwing a tantrum, flirting with Livan, and being a bad teammate all in one breath. Or when you wouldn’t let me shut off the stupid news report of game, which showed the entire team the newest drama that would be brought into the clubhouse.” She was trying to stay calm, but the memory of his actions during and after the game played with her emotions, creating a mess of anger, disgust, embarrassment, and even betrayal.

When Mike just shook his head and scowled at her without answering, Ginny’s temper spiked. “All right  Lawson, just answer a few questions for me. Why didn’t you let me shut the news off when someone turned it on? Did you turn it on yourself?”

“Baker,” he began on a sigh.

“No, _captain,_ I need your help understanding this. Who and why?”

Mike crossed his arms across his chest and stared her down. “Rita turned it on because she felt we all needed to be aware of what was going on. I didn’t shut it off because, number one, I had no idea what it was going to show and, number two, I would never have known what was happening if I hadn’t seen it. And you know that was all the press wanted to talk about when they came in, so if we hadn’t known what happened, we would all have been caught flat-footed and who knows what one of the guys would have said.”

“Who decided that no one would answer questions about me?”

His mouth quirked into a small smirk. “Believe it or not, the guys decided that all on their own. All I did was grab the four idiots that started this shit show and get them locked in the trainer’s room until the press left.”

“What did you say to the four guys,” she asked, holding her breath as she waited for his answer.

“None of your business.”

Her jaw dropped open in shock. “It is my business! This is about me. What’s going to happen?”

He shook his head at her. “It’s between them and the front office now. There’s nothing I can say at this point.”

Ginny wanted to yell at him, she really, really did, but if the front office really was involved, it was completely out of his hands. And that meant she might not be told anything about the players beyond what the PR department decided she should say about the whole mess.

“Now it’s my turn for questions, rookie,” Lawson told her, his expression hardening and his voice developing a bite. “Why didn’t you tell me what the players were doing?”

Ginny blew out a breath. “I didn’t notice until I saw it on national tv.”

“Tell me the truth, damn it.”

“I am, damn it!”

“Seriously,” Mike asked in disbelief.

“Yes, seriously,” Ginny returned.

“Huh.” She could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he processed this new information before he continued his questions.

“So tell me what you and Livan were doing in the clubhouse during the game,” Lawson bit out.

Ginny tried to cross her arms, but her cast made it impossible, and somehow that just added to her anger. “What exactly do you think we were doing?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“What, do you think that we were having sex in the trainer’s room?”

“Were you?”

She could feel the anger transform into fury. “As much as I love sex in a smelly clubhouse, I draw the line at fucking in front of a medical professional, so Livan was safe only because Rita was in the room,” she spit out.

Mike’s eyes narrowed. “I’m standing here trying to help you keep to your ‘no ballplayer’ rules, and you’re pulling this crap with me?”

She was so angry she actually sputtered, unable to slow her thoughts down enough to form words.

“Listen to me, Baker. You’ve already got people all over your ass, and I’ve got people riding mine, too. The last thing that needs to happen is for someone to question your infamous “no ballplayer” rule. If you and Livan spend time together, even innocently, it might happen.”

Ginny blew out a sigh, suddenly sick of Mike, sick of the argument, sick of the entire mess. “You mean like what happened with you and me? How even being at a club with the entire team, it still came down on me? You know, I thought that I would be safe at least in my own clubhouse from this shit, but you just ruined it. So congratulations, you became the first Padre to say to my face that you think I’m screwing a teammate.”

She might have taken pleasure at the stunned expression on Mike’s face if she wasn’t so tired of the whole situation. “Get out of my space, captain, I have to change to meet Rita.”

He stopped in front of her, their shoes nearly touching, forcing her to tip her head to meet his eyes. “Before you preach to me about being a good teammate, you better look around,” she warned. “If you don’t keep track of your clubhouse, someone is going to have to do it for you. And when you start looking around for bad teammates, I suggest you start in the mirror.”

She found some bitter satisfaction in the fact that he was the one to look away first. She shut the door and clicked the lock before dropping heavily into her chair. She buried her face in her hands for just a moment, the only moment of weakness she would allow herself, before she changed into workout clothes and headed for the weight room.

 

**********************************************************************

 

Thirty minutes before game time found Ginny standing behind second base, watching her teammates begin their pregame warmups. She watched as both teams’ starting pitchers headed for the bullpen to begin their long toss with their catchers. Lawson moseyed across the field, in no particular hurry to follow his starter. In stark contrast, the Cubs catcher was talking animatedly with his pitcher, his arms gesturing as they moved together across the outfield in step. Maybe it was the difference between a veteran and a rookie catcher, but the difference between the two was startling.

“Well, well, look who graced us with her presence.”

Ginny was already smiling when she turned around. “I recognize that hick accent anywhere.” She gave Tommy a bro-hug and stepped back. “So they’re still letting you pitch, huh? I thought the Cubs wanted to win the series.”

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious Baker.”

“How do you like Chicago,” she asked, hoping she wasn’t prying into a sore subject.

Tommy shrugged. “It’s alright. The weather is getting colder than what I’m used to.”

Ginny smiled. “Tommy, it’s only mid-September, not February.”

He crossed his arms. “Yeah, well there was frost on the grass yesterday. There’s never frost on the grass in San Diego. I had to wear a sweatshirt to leave my house and catch the team bus.”

“Oh, you poor baby,” Ginny laughed.

They both took a step back as several Padres began their sprinting practices. “How’s your arm,” Tommy asked.

“Frustrating,” Ginny said, trying to keep her tone neutral.

Tommy rubbed his hand, as if he were subconsciously remembering the pain of his broken bones. “Yeah, it’s not the pain that’s the hardest, it’s the forced inactivity, not being able to be fully part of the team.”

“Exactly,” Ginny agreed. It felt surprisingly good to have someone understand that.

A shout from the third base dugout had Tommy looking over his shoulder. “Hey, do you want to meet some of the guys? I mean, I’ve told them horror stories about you and what a diva you are, but they’re feeling brave and want to experience the terror for themselves.”

“You’re such a dick,” Ginny laughed, giving him a light shove to push him off balance.

She followed Tommy towards the third base dugout, making sure her body language stayed relaxed. While she trusted Tommy, well mostly trusted him, she knew from hard experience that just because players wanted to meet her didn’t mean that they were going to be friendly encounters. Double A ball had been rough until she had played against all the teams in the league and all of their players had gotten to scope her out and determine that she was a legitimate player.

Suddenly she froze in her tracks, a small smile of disbelief gracing her lips. Tommy had taken several steps before realizing she wasn’t beside him. “Come on Baker,” he called out, his voice raised to include the nearby players in the conversation. “Grandpa Rossy can’t make it that far.”

Walking towards her was David Ross and Ben Zobrist, the Cubs veteran catcher and second baseman respectively. And, oh my God, they were holding hands. Right behind them were Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, swinging their joined hands jauntily, as if they were kindergarteners on their way to recess.

“Be prepared, Rizzo has no concept of personal space,” Tommy warned her when she moved to stand next to him.

Sure enough, Rizzo pulled her into a brief one arm hug as soon as he was within arm’s reach. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he told her. “Tommy can’t shut up about you. Now we can separate the fact from the rumor.”

Ginny gave a mock shudder. “I can only imagine what he has told you. Just to be safe, don’t believe anything he said.”

“Hey, I might have said something nice,” Tommy objected.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “And did you?”

Tommy shrugged. “Well, no. But I might have.”

“Do you see the abuse I take from him,” she asked the other players in mock dismay. “I should have sent the Cubs organization a thank you card for taking him off of my hands.”

“See? Didn’t I tell you she was mean,” Tommy appealed to his new teammates.

The four players had been watching the byplay in amusement. “I don’t know,” David told them. “I watched you layout a backup catcher in a fight that she started. I’d say it’s more likely that the two of you together up the mean factor in MLB.”

“The Mean Team has a nice ring to it,” Kris mused. “You could put that on a cape.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t say too much, Bryzzo.”

Both men shrugged easily. “Hey, the name works. No objections here.”

Ginny looked back at David and Ben. “You know you’re going to catch a bunch of crap for that,” she said, nodding her head at their still linked hands. There was no way she wasn’t going to acknowledge what they were doing for her. It was uncomfortable for her to talk about, but players that she hadn’t even met before were supporting her in a way her team hadn’t, and they deserved all the credit in the world.

“Hey, we might catch crap, too,” Kris objected.

“No you won’t. You guys are always together. People probably think this is normal for you,” Tommy retorted.

“Here’s the thing, Baker. Everybody is a little bit gay for their catcher,” David told her. “It’s just a fact.” The others nodded at the words, as if the veteran simply saying it made it true.

Ginny laughed, feeling as if the weight on her shoulders was disappearing. She turned to Tommy and without hesitation took his hand. “What do you think? Is it true?”

“Oh yeah,” Tommy agreed seriously. “You have no idea how hard to throw a bullpen session with these guys. I can barely concentrate.” The group laughed uproariously at his dry tone.

“Alright kids, as much fun as this is, it’s time to get to work.”

The guys let out a groan. “Grandpa Rossy, always running our fun,” Ben complained.

As the guys started to walk away, still holding hands nonetheless, Ginny called out to Tommy. “Hey, is your son around? I never got a chance to really meet him.”

“He’s at home tonight because it’s a late game. Tomorrow he’ll be here for the afternoon game. Let’s meet up beforehand.” He shook his head in disbelief. “For some reason, both he and my wife seem to not hate you. I can’t figure out why.”

“Hey, my kids want to meet you too,” Ben called out over his shoulder.

“It’s the family travel series. You’ll probably be meeting a lot of the players’ families.” Tommy shrugged. “Apparently my teammates don’t have high standards for who their kids meet.”

 

*******************************************************************************

And suddenly, holding hands with Ginny Baker became a _thing._ While the pictures of her holding hands first with Mike, then with Livan, had blown up the internet, it was nothing compared to the pictures of the Cubs players holding hands as they and Ginny all talked in the outfield. And then, when all of the Padres players held hands during the pre-game intro and national anthem, it exploded. Suddenly _everybody_ wanted to hold hands in solidarity. Players from across baseball, as well as other sports, were pictured holding hands on the field. Celebrities got involved and oh my God, Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth tweeted pictures of them holding hands in their Captain American and Thor costumes. Ginny had a moment where she was seriously concerned her ovaries might burst when she saw that pic.

When she went out in public, instead of asking for autographs, fans now asked for pictures of themselves holding her hand. It became the thing to do. And while Ginny hated being touched by strangers, it was a price she was more than willing to pay for the end of the scandal. She had come out on top of the whole mess. The clubhouse was back to abnormal (there was no such thing as a normal clubhouse in baseball), the tabloids turned their focus on a new scandal involving, what else, a reality tv star, and as bizarre as it was, she was the darling of the media. She wasn’t stupid. Undoubtedly, the love she was getting from the public and media wouldn’t last long; look how quickly they had turned on her before. Still, it felt wonderful to be able to live her life without the constant anxiety riding her again. To be able to just take a deep breath and enjoy her life in baseball again felt like the best gift in the world.

*****************************************************************************

 

“Ginny, come on.”

“No, Zobi.”

“Ginny, you can’t keep my kids.”

“Yes I can. They like me best.”

 “Of course they like you best. You just gave them three pounds of candy, popcorn, and soda,” he said in exasperation.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we can set up some sort of visitation rights for you,” Ginny offered magnanimously.

Zobrist turned to Tommy. “Dude, do something. She can’t keep my kids.”

Tommy gave a snort of laughter. “My wife already texted me that she and my son were having a sleepover with Ginny and “her kids” and I wasn’t invited.”

Right on cue, both men’s phones buzzed. Zobrist stared at his phone in disbelief. “Are you seeing this?”

Tommy snorted. “I don’t know why you’re surprised. I warned you.”

“What,” Ginny asked suspiciously. “What are you looking at?”

Shaking his head as he laughed, the Cubs second baseman turned his phone towards Ginny, so she could see more than a dozen WAGs and even more children holding hands and wearing Ginny Baker jerseys.

"After we went through all the trouble of getting you and Tommy matching Mean Team capes, this is how you repay me?"

"No, the puppy I just bought for your kids is how I'll repay you."

Ginny just smiled at their groans. For the first time in a while, she was absurdly happy to be a Padre. This was where she belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, your comments are the reason I keep writing. I had a hard time with this chapter and I can't tell you how many times I went back and re-read every single comment you all left me. I couldn't do it without you all.


	14. Follow My Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny needs cheering up and Omar is happy to help.
> 
> This is told from Omar's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sitting here in Houston with my home surrounded by flood waters. Unlike so many others, I'm safe and dry and haven't lost electricity, but I'm stuck in my house with no where to go until the waters recede. I desperately need a distraction from our real world problems here in Houston, and this chapter was it for me. I hope you enjoy.

It was rare for Omar to come in this early. In fact, he was never in this early. He wasn't ever the last person in the clubhouse; that was reserved for the captain and his backup. In fact, he took pride in being one of the first players to arrive. But still, this was unusual, even for him. 

The reasons he was in this early began and ended with Ginny Baker. He always felt a little awkward around her. He knew how she felt about dating ballplayers and he would never do anything that might make her uncomfortable. Heck, at this point he didn't want her to even suspect that he had feelings for her. Maybe it was love, maybe it was just infatuation, as Lawson had emphatically insisted on calling it. Whatever it was, all he knew was that he had feelings for her that definitely went beyond the normal camaraderie between teammates. And it was because of those feelings that he watched her so carefully, and lately he had seen some things that worried him. 

She was starting to wear down from all of the stress, starting to show signs that the load she carried was too heavy for her to bear alone. The whole hand-holding tabloid mess had been hard on the team, and Omar could only imagine how horrible it must have been for her. Yet everyone seemed to think that she would be fine with it. Ginny Baker had been marketed as an image and persona to the media, sponsors, fans, and even major league baseball. She radiated confidence, composure, and a determination to be the best at everything she did. And a lot of that was true, but Ginny Baker was first and foremost a person who had an enormous amount of pressure on her and no one could survive that alone. He was afraid that everyone thought that her confident image made her immune from any of the self-doubt, stress, and negative emotions. If that was the case, she was going to crash hard, and no one would be any wiser until it was too late.

And that was what bothered him the most. As far as he could tell (and yes, maybe he had been eavesdropping on a few select conversations) Ginny only had a handful of people she let close to her. She had mentioned in passing that her family was not a close one, and it sounded like there was no real support from them. As one of six children, Omar had a hard time wrapping his head around the thought of a family not involved in each other's lives. Not that he didn't wish for less involvement of his own family; there were many times he wished his family would go on a five year, no communication allowed, expedition to Mars. But he knew his family was always there for him. The same was true of his childhood friends.  

Sure Ginny had Blip and his family, but Omar had gotten the feeling that Mike Lawson had become her go-to person, the one that would help no matter what she needed. They would always sit together when the team traveled, and more often than not wherever one was, the other was sure to be close by in the clubhouse. Sure, some of that time was talking baseball, a veteran catcher offering instruction and insight to a rookie pitcher, but he had seen Mike's phone light up with a text that made him laugh, and Omar had watched Ginny type and send the text from across the clubhouse. They sat and texted back and forth, giggling like preteens instead of sitting by each other and sharing the joke out loud where someone might overhear. 

But then there was that incident in the training room, the one where Mike had lambasted him for thinking he was in love with Ginny. Omar knew Mike was trying to prove his point by listing all the small things that Omar didn't know about her but Mike did because he spent so much time with her. Even then, it had all seemed relatively innocent to Omar until he saw the two of them dancing at the club. Omar and the rest of the team had watched her convince Mike to dance. Most of the team laughed at Mike's bad mood and cheered Ginny when she finally got him to honor his bet and dance with her. To be fair, it had been funny to watch Ginny taunt the veteran. But it became a lot less funny when Mike stared at her ass the entire way off the floor. And then Omar watched as both Blip and Butch caught Mike staring, and their reactions worried him. It looked like both Blip and Butch thought Mike was up to something beyond friendly competition. Given the tense atmosphere in the clubhouse since Blip and Mike's public fight, Omar could count a million ways something could go wrong with the situation.

As he approached the clubhouse, thumping music drifted down the hall from the exercise room. Of course, she would be in there already. When Omar was upset, physical exercise was the best way he had to calm down. Something about being physically exhausted made the emotions and problems more manageable. He'd bet his right arm that Ginny was the same way. And given how much she had going on at the moment, he wouldn't be surprised if she had come in as soon as the doors unlocked this morning.

He peeked in the doorway and there she was, trying to jog on the treadmill and failing spectacularly because her casted arm couldn't swing. Before he could say anything, she slammed her hand on the stop button, grabbed her water bottle and threw it awkwardly left-handed across the room. The bottle bounced off the floor and slowly rolled to a stop against the wall.

"Damn it," she bit out, angry frustration radiating off her in nearly visible waves.

She stepped off the treadmill and leaned against the wall, staring blankly across the room at the still bottle. She slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her arm wrapped around her bent knees, her face tipped up to stare at the ceiling.

"Just damn it," she repeated, her tone no longer angry. Instead, she sounded...hopeless. And then, to his horror, a single tear tracked down her cheek. 

Omar's heart broke a little for her. 

He stood there, out of her eyesight and debated what the right thing to do would be. He doubted she would appreciate knowing that he saw her at a moment of weakness, but she absolutely needed some sort of moral support or, at the very least, a distraction from her troubles. 

A new song blared from her phone, one that was obviously a favorite by the sudden smile on her face. A quick swipe of her hand banished the tear from her cheek and she easily rose from the floor. After a deep breath, her shoulders straightened and chin tilted upwards, her body regaining it's confident posture that was nearly her trademark. He almost bought it, except he caught the quick swipe of her hand across the opposite cheek, as if cheeking for any betraying moisture. Then he heard a sound...oh my God, was she humming? Surely it wasn't possible to be that off key from humming. 

Before his courage failed him, he stepped into the exercise room on cue and sang with the music.

 

_Girl, you know I want your love,_

_Your love was handmade for somebody like me_

_Come on now, follow my lead_

_I may be crazy, don't mind me_

 

 

At the sound of his voice, she spun around, her eyes wide and mouth open in surprise. He wasn't sure how she would respond as he slowly walked towards her in time with the song. Would she laugh at him? Maybe mock him? That could make being teammates awkward for a long time if she did. And then, with a smile that nearly blew his mind, she sang back to him.

 

_Boy, let's not talk too much_

_Grab on my waist and put that body on me_

_Come on now, follow my lead_

_Come, come on now, follow my lead_

 

They met in the middle of the room, and with a quick grab of her hand, he spun her into his arms. And then the dance took away the nerves that nearly paralyzed him when he touched her. Dancing did that for him; it was a release to let his body respond to the music, logic giving way to emotions as his body absorbed the feel of a partner moving in rhythm with him. Dancing left no room for self-doubt or unease. 

It was quickly apparent she wasn't used to dancing with a partner. Granted, he had more experience than most people, but good grief, he didn't think it was unreasonable to expect her to actually  _dance_ with her partner instead of bouncing around and occasionally going in the same direction he was. He bit his tongue and reminded himself that this was just for fun and she probably didn't know any better. He didn't know how well she would accept advice, so he kept his mouth shut and focused on keeping her having fun for the rest of the song.  

He grabbed her hand and pulled her against his chest in time for the last few beats of the song. "Omar, you are an amazing dancer! And you didn't tell me you could sing. Where did you learn to dance and why haven't you danced with me before now?" Ginny beamed up at him, her eyes bright and her smile genuine and Omar couldn't help smiling back.

"My parents were professional dancers when they met. They retired when my mom got pregnant with my oldest sister, and they opened a dance studio in Houston, my hometown. My dad taught at a renowned performing arts high school, and my mom trained dancers at the studio. All of us kids danced, and there were plenty of times I ended up in performances that weren't in my favorite, simply because there weren't enough guys. And heaven help us all of one of my sisters didn't have a partner."

"How many sisters do you have?"

" Five. Two older and three younger."

"And how many of them danced ballet?"

"All of them. I ended up in a lot of ballet performances so my sisters could have a good partner," he confessed with a sigh, waiting for her reaction. Many people were amused by the thought of a male dancer. He knew there wouldn't be any mockery from her, but that didn't mean he was eager to hear her laughter either. 

Her head tipped slightly to the side like it did when she was thinking. "You know, your reflexes are great and you have great awareness of where your body is in relation to the ball, which makes you good at both defense and offense. Plus, you never have muscle strains, which is probably from flexibility as well as your great proprioception. I bet all of that dancing really helped with your game." She gave him a quick, mischievous grin. "Especially your game with women. Every woman loves a man who can dance."

He fought a blush, reminding himself that she meant nothing by her statement. "I don't know about that," he muttered.

"Aww, that blush just makes you even more sweet," Ginny teased.

Omar scowled. "I'm not sweet," he said. Sweet wasn't a compliment. Sweet was something a woman said when she thought you were a nice guy, not someone who was relationship material.

Ginny gave a soft shove to his shoulder. "You are such a guy. Being sweet isn't bad, you dork." She moved away and grabbed her phone from the bench where it had been resting. When she turned to face him, she was wearing an expression that he didn't normally see on her. She looked unsure, even a little hesitant. She bit the side of her lip and shifted her weight from leg to leg. "Would you mind a little more dancing? It's okay if you don't have time," she rushed out.

Omar's heart skipped a beat. Would he dance with her? There was nothing he'd rather do, but she didn't know that. "Yeah, I can stick around for a while." Listen to him, playing it cool.

"I mean, it's great cardio and..." she hurried to say.

"Ginny, you don't need a reason to dance. I'll dance with you whenever you want, no explanation needed," he told her. He wanted her to be comfortable with him and it wouldn't happen if she wasn't sure of her reception. "What do you want to learn?"

She was smiling again, this time sheepishly. "I want to learn to dance to that song. It's my favorite. How would you do that?"

"Salsa.  _Shape Of You_ begs for the salsa," was his instant response. He knew dance and he knew music and his response was instinctive, but after a second he became self-conscious. The salsa could be a sensuous dance, one that required plenty of body to body contact. Maybe that would make her uncomfortable, make her feel like he was crossing a line. He opened his mouth to assure her he could come up with a different style of dance when her smile widened.

"I've always wanted to learn how to salsa. Show me what to do."

Omar didn't have to be told twice. "Here, we'll keep it easy to start with."

"You don't need to start easy," she objected. "I can do it."

Omar recognized wounded pride when he heard it. "I just meant that we'll work on the basic steps and motions before we go to partner dancing. I'm sure you'll get it quickly. Can you count music?" She looked so offended, he half expected her to hit him and he rushed to continue his lesson before she got the chance. "The salsa is counted in four, but you only move on the first three beats." He showed her the steps, which she quickly mastered. 

"Hips are the most important part of the salsa. It's just a foxtrot if you don't add the hips. You need to roll them with every forward step." He showed her what he meant, feeling a bit uncomfortable as she stared intently at his hips, pelvis, and groin. He had taught dance before and had even taught several ex-girlfriends the salsa in specific, but it never made it self-conscious like this did. 

He watched her try to mimic his movements. After several failed attempts, he could see her frustration start to rise, which would only make it harder for her to accomplish the movements.

"Here, let me help," he told her. He moved in front of her and put his hands on her hips. "Take a step forward." He applied pressure to one hip to make the other rock slightly to the side. "Okay, now step forward. With the other leg. No, the other,  _other_ leg." He had to bite his cheek to suppress his laugh. "Now rock this hip out." He applied pressure to the opposite hip. "Okay, now take a step backwards."

They repeated the motions for several minutes before he felt confident enough in her ability to let her try it on her own. He took a step backwards but continued the steps to mirror hers, slightly exaggerating the movement of his hips to help her follow along. After another couple of tries, Ginny stopped and looked down at her pelvis.

"I think my hips are defective. They don't move like yours," she said, sounding disgruntled.

Omar nearly swallowed his tongue. "Your hips are great. I've had a lot more experience, which is why the movements look so easy. Just relax and enjoy yourself. If you get too frustrated, you'll tense up and then it's nearly impossible to move your hips correctly." He didn't realize how suggestive his comments were until they were out of his mouth. Did she notice?

"I don't know. I mean, it seemed easy enough when you were showing me, and when your hands were on my hips I thought I had it, but the minute I try it on my own it's like my hips forgot everything you taught me. You do it so naturally, but I obviously need more lessons." 

Jesus, if anyone heard this conversation they wouldn't believe it was about dance. He could feel the tips of his ears turn red but Ginny didn't seem to notice the double meaning in their words. 

He cleared his throat. "You know enough of the basics, so let's try partner dancing." She immediately stepped forward until the tips of their shoes were nearly touching and he had to fight the urge to step backwards and ease the uncomfortable feeling rising in his chest. He reminded himself that this was about her, about helping her cope and keep her mind off of her troubles. He wasn't some sicko that would use her distress as a chance to get close to her. That thought quickly cleared up any discomfort and brought his attention back to where it belonged. On her.

"Normally our hands would be clasped and held up like this," he told her, his left hand raised to shoulder level. She immediately lifted her casted arm to fit her right hand in his. "Now my hand will go here," he lightly placed his hand on her shoulder blade. "Gently rest your left arm on top of mine and your hand should hold my shoulder." He took a moment to let her get used to the feel of the pose before asking, "Does it hurt your arm to be raised like that? We can always switch hands, or not even use your arm at all."

"I'm fine," was her immediate response. 

He held her gaze. "And would you tell me if it wasn't okay? That it made your arm hurt?"

She glared at him. "Of course I would." When he just raised an eyebrow, she huffed. "I would!" At his continued his doubting silencing, she finally gave him a sheepish look. "Okay, I wouldn't have. But I promise I will now. I don't want to slow down my recovery."

Omar gave her a nod, convinced that she would be honest with him. "Let's do those basic steps again, but this time let me guide you." They spent several minutes just repeating the same forward and backwards steps. The more she practiced, the more confident she became and suddenly she stopped watching her feet and met his eyes. The sense of satisfaction swept through Omar when she repeated those steps while maintaining eye contact quickly faded under his rising frustration until he abruptly dropped his arms and took a step back. 

"You can't keep trying to lead," he told Ginny in exasperation.

She blinked up at him. "Am I? I didn't mean to. I'm not used to following anyone." Somehow she sounded both haughty and embarrassed. 

He barely managed to suppress his sigh at her defensive words. "I'm your partner. In salsa, my primary role is to make you look good. I'm showing you off, making other men jealous that I have such a sexy woman, making them wish they were lucky enough to be with you."

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "That sounds a little sexist. Should I be offended by that?"

"No, of course not," Omar rushed to explain. The last thing he needed was for her to be offended on behalf women everywhere and stop dancing. "It's just..." he struggled to explain it.

She smiled at him. "I know what you mean. I'm just giving you a bad time," she said with a little laugh.

Omar shook his head at her. "You're a cruel woman."

"You have no idea," she told him with a grin.

Omar pulled himself together and moved the conversation back to safer ground. "Let's try it again, but this time focus on letting me lead you."

Ginny stepped into him and once again held his hand and shoulder. "I'm not sure I can," she confessed, meeting his eyes. "I like being in control, even on the dance floor."

And there it was, the secret to Ginny Baker. The one that explained so many of her choices, so many of her decisions and actions. The one that allowed her to be a groundbreaking athlete and handle an immense amount of pressure. It was also the one that might be her greatest flaw, her Achilles' heal that could bring her down.

"In salsa, and all of dancing really, you have to have trust in your partner or it won't work," he told her softly. "You can trust me, I won't let you get hurt."

Her lips quirked. "It's okay, I won't let you get hurt either. Well, unless I step on your feet, but really that would be your fault for not moving them out of my way."

Omar gave a shake of his head has a soft chuckle escaped. "I guess I'll have to trust that I can keep my feet away from yours."

"Well then, I guess I'll have to trust you, too."

He felt like the king of the world for the one powerful moment when he knew that she trusted him enough to give up control in this one teeny, tiny area. Omar tried to suppress the happiness that filled his chest with warmth, he really did. He wasn't as successful as he hoped because Ginny rolled her eyes at his smile, but after a second, she smiled back. 

He cleared his throat. "Okay, let's practice my leading skills."

She laughed up at him. "You're so diplomatic. What you really mean is 'let's practice Ginny's following skills'."

"I have five sisters. I know what not to say if I want to avoid trouble." And with the lightest of pressure on her back, he pulled her closer and guided her into a turn. 

He lost track of the time as they practiced the steps and movements so characteristic of the salsa. She insisted on repeating each motion over and over again until she felt she had accomplished it enough to move on. At times her obsessive need for perfection nearly drove him insane, but then she would grin at him with satisfaction in her eyes and his frustration would disappate, no match for the happy bounce she gave when she accomplished a step.

"I think we're ready to try this with music."

Ginny was across the room in a flash, her phone quickly cued up _Shape of You._ A quick swipe of her finger set the song on repeat and as soon as she hit play she rushed across the room and quickly settled in his arms. Omar had to take a deep breath to settle the spike in his pulse that came from her rushing to him.

"Come on, we're wasting music," Ginny said impatiently, giving him a small push to get him moving. With a laugh he pulled her a little closer and swung her into a showy turn. At first she struggled to keep up with the fast paced music, but as she began to adjust he added more flare to the steps, spinning her away and pulling her back, quickly pivoting and then smoothly guiding her to adjust to the new direction. He became swept up in the music and the beautiful woman in his arms who, while not always gracefully, danced with the passion necessary for the salsa.

_Boy let's not talk too much_

He spun her away from him and quickly pulled her in until her back was against his chest.

_Grab on my waist and put that body on me_

She must have been feeling very confident, because she grabbed their joined hand and, true to the song, placed his hand on her waist before sliding it across her flat stomach and down to her hip.

_Come on now follow my lead_

She slid her free hand up over her head and around the back of his neck.

_Come, come on follow my lead_

He nearly swallowed his tongue and his feet felt glued to the floor. He barely managed to recover in time to move with chorus and he actually missed a step as he turned her in his arms. He pulled himself together and finished the song with a flourish.

They were both breathing hard from the quick paced dancing steps. Ginny stepped away from him and moved to the bench holding her towel and water bottle.

"This is as good of a cardio workout as running," she told him as she wiped the sweat from her face.

Omar dug in his bag to grab his own towel and water bottle. "It can be," he agreed. "It depends on the dance and the music."

Ginny's smile was easy to see from across the room. "And the partner, right? It's hard work leading someone that isn't so good at following."

"I never said that," he objected with a laugh.

She shrugged at him. "You didn't have to. I said it for you." When he opened his mouth to object she laughed, crossing the room to stand in front of him. "I insist on continuing our dance lessons at least twice a week," she told him with a smile. Then, like a switch flipped in her, her smile faded and she gave a shrug. "If you want to, that is. You don't have to..."

"I'd love to keep dancing," he interrupted her self-conscious offer.

"It's a date then," she told him with a smile before turning away.

He grimaced. "Let's keep this between us for a while," he requested. "I'm not sure the guys..." he began.

Now it was her turn to interrupt him. "Yeah, some of the guys might tease, but you can only keep this a secret for long. The minute we dance at the club," she paused to give him an arch look, "and we  _will_ be dancing at the club, the guys are gonna figure out that you're the best dancer on the team and probably in the majors. Then they're gonna be on you like white on rice, trying to learn your secrets so they can pick up more women."

That hadn't been his main concern, but now that she pointed it out he added that to his list of things to avoid. He had been worried about the captain finding out and flipping his shit. He watched as she moved back to the bench and started chugging her water like she was trying to drown herself.

And as if his thoughts had summoned him, Lawson's reflection appeared in the mirror. He had stopped just outside the door of the room, and who knew how long he stood in the hallway listening and watching their interactions. Mike glowered at him in the mirror, his arms crossed across his bulky chest and his body radiating anger. Yeah, he must have seen or heard something that made him question the situation.

A quick glance at Ginny found her refilling her water bottle at the water cooler, unaware of Mike's presence. Without hesitation, Omar swung the door closed right in Lawson's face. He had a quick glimpse of Blip's started expression coming down the hallway before the door clicked shut. 

To hell with Mike Lawson and whatever shit he was dealing with. Omar knew he was going to catch all sorts of hell later, but right now he had more important things on his mind. 

"Hey Ginny, you recovered enough to go again," he called out.

She spun on him with a grin. "Do you think you can keep up," she taunted.

As he spun her in his arms and guided her across the room, he knew it was worth all the trouble was going to have with Lawson and maybe Blip. He had Ginny smiling, her problems forgotten as she lost herself in the music again. Oh yeah, she was worth it.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song referenced is Shape Of You by Ed Sherran.
> 
> Yes, I made Omar's hometown Houston, so please humor me because I choose to believe that if the show didn't want him to be from Houston, they would have specifically said so.


	15. Girlfriends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A friend comes to visit Ginny.

 

**Cara:** Sorry I couldn’t answer your call. I’m at work. What’s up?

**Ginny:** Are you allowed to text at work?

**Cara:** I’m allowed to do whatever I want as long as I don’t get caught doing it.

**Ginny:** Just call me when you’re off.

**Cara:** Seriously, this is fine.

**Ginny:** Ok, I guess. How’s it going?

**Cara:** I need a change. I’m thinking of running away to join the circus.

**Ginny:** The circus? Really?

**Cara:** Hey, don’t knock the carnie life. I think I’d be great at playing with fire.

**Ginny:** Oh god.

**Cara:** At least it wouldn’t be boring. And if anyone pissed me off I could light their hair on fire.

**Ginny:** Wow. Well, if you ever get vacation time at your job, you can always come to San Diego and hang out or something.

**Cara:** Seriously????

**Ginny:** Um, yes?

**Cara:** You aren’t playing me right?

**Ginny:** OMG. You can come to San Diego and crash at my place as long as you’re okay with sleeping on a sofa.

**Cara:** What time would be good for you?

**Ginny:** The season is wrapping up and I don’t have anything else going on except rehab. I’m pretty open.

**Cara:** So would tonight be too soon?

**Ginny:** Wait, don’t you have to work?

**Cara:** I can get time off. So tonight is too soon? What about tomorrow?

**Ginny:** You nut. Tomorrow is good. It gives me a chance to pick up all the clothes I have thrown around my room. Lol

**Cara:** Don’t feel obligated to clean for me. I have plenty of experience stepping over messes, both mine and my roommates.

**Cara:** Think of it as a drunken obstacle course for whenever we make it back from the bars.

**Ginny:** LMAO

 

                *****************************************************

 

“I can’t believe you live in the Omni. I mean, it’s the _Omni.”_

Ginny sighed and flopped back onto her bed. “I know.  It’s weird to live in a hotel.”

Cara rolled onto her stomach to face her. “No, lots of people live in hotels; just not nice ones. This is like some Eloise level of stuff here.”

Ginny laughed. “Eloise from the kids’ book? The one that lived in the Plaza? Yeah, not even close. And no, lots of people live in _motels,_ which are totally different from hotels.”

Cara tipped her head as she considered. “You know, this is probably pretty expensive. You need to plan out a budget. You might need to get a roommate to afford a two bedroom apartment in San Diego. I know having roommates suck, but you’ve got to be careful to save money while you can.”

 “Are you giving me financial advice? Really?” Ginny raised an eyebrow.

“I dated an Area 51’er for a while,” Cara explained with a shrug.” Even in AAA, the pay sucks goat balls, so there is no way in hell you have any money saved from the minors.”

Ginny snorted. “Yeah, living on $800/month doesn’t exactly help with your savings.”

“See, I’m right,” Cara said with satisfaction, as if their conversation had solved the world’s problems.

“Right about what?”

“That you need a roommate.”

Ginny lolled her head to look over at Cara. “Really? Any ideas?” She raised an eyebrow, pretty sure she knew where this was going.

Cara quickly sat up and grabbed her phone. A quick swipe of her finger across the screen brought up an image that she held up an inch from Ginny’s face. “Yeah, I’ve got 24 of them.”

Ginny pushed the phone away and sat up, surprised at Cara’s answer. “You want me to room with a teammate,” she asked. The more she thought about it, the funnier it seemed until she was nearly breathless from her laughter.

 Cara raised an eyebrow as Ginny wound down. “And how is that funny?”

“I could never room with a teammate.”

“Why?”

“Because I know them too well. We’d kill each other in a matter of days.”

“Or you already know each other’s quirks and you’ll be prepared to live with them,” Cara pointed out prosaically.

Ginny laughed again. “I never knew you were such an optimist.”

Cara swiped repeatedly at her phone, a wicked grin appearing as she found the picture she was looking for. “Here, I’ve helped narrow down the list for you.” She flipped the phone around to show the team’s ESPN Body spread. Ginny couldn’t help the fond smile that formed whenever she remembered how her team had stepped up to support her.

“You should room with him,” Cara instructed, pointing at an image.

“Salvi’s married with kids.”

Cara frowned. “Are you sure? Absolutely, positively sure?”

“Absolutely, positively.”

Cara flopped on her back. “Damn. You’ve broken my heart and crushed my dreams.” She gave a dramatic sigh.

“I’m sure you’ll recover,” Ginny laughed.

Cara weakly held out the phone, letting her arm flop softly against the bed. “I might not,” she whispered. “Unless you can get me…” she raised her head to check the picture before pointing, “Him. He could help mend my broken heart.” She sighed again, resting her wrist against her forehead like a fairytale princess.

Ginny leaned forward to look at the image. “You want Sonny?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all. He’s a sweetheart.”

Cara looked so disappointed Ginny laughed. “What?”

The blond bounced up to sit cross legged facing Ginny. “I was kind of hoping he was less sweet and more…caveman.” She shrugged when Ginny’s jaw dropped. “What? It’s a waste to have all those muscles if you don’t use them. Preferable on me, with me, or in me.”

“I’m torn between being appalled and jealous.”

“Oh, definitely jealous. And if you haven’t learned the great things about musclemen on your own, we are going to need to have a serious talk about your life choices.”

Ginny was still laughing when she picked up her buzzing phone from the bedside table. “Speaking of the devils,” she told Cara, her eyes quickly scanning the screen. “The team is going out to a bar tonight. Want to go?”

“Hmm, let me think. I could sit here and stare at my phone, trying to guess who is single and wondering if the guys are this hot in real life or if ESPN photoshopped the hell out of the photos. Or, I could go out to a bar I haven’t been before, meet people I haven’t met before, and do things I haven’t done before. I’m gonna have to think this one through.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and stood. “Well, while you’re here with those deep thoughts I’m going to get ready.”

*****

Ten minutes later, Cara stood facing Ginny. “I thought you said you were ready.”

“I am.”

Cara crossed her arms, taking care not to splash the alcohol from her glass. “Well you better go try again. You are not wearing leggings and sneakers to a bar.”

Ginny put her hand on her hip. “It’s a bar, not a club. And I’m hoping you plan on wearing more clothes and less shoes before we go.”

Cara looked down at her outfit. “These are my favorite heels. Something about combat boots with 4” heels says ‘tough girl who knows she’s sexy’. And honestly, where have you been going that a crop top is showing too much skin?” At Ginny’s silence, Cara conceded. “What kind of bar is it? There are all kinds of bars, and they all require different clothes. Are we talking sports bar? Biker bar? Hooker bar? A bar that is really a nightclub?”

“It’s just a laid back place with music, greasy bar food, good drinks and a tiny place to dance if you’re brave enough to try it. It’s casual.”

“Okay, let’s make a deal. I’ll bring down my heel height if you change into non-athletic clothing.”

“Deal.”

Cara quickly refilled their glasses with more Jack and Coke and raised hers in a toast. “Here’s to a good night with good friends. And hopefully great one night stands,” she rushed out right before Ginny tapped glasses.

“Just because you said the last part fast doesn’t mean it will magically come true,” Ginny said in amusement.

“Oh, there’s no magic involved. I’m the world’s best wingman, so whatever guy you want, I’ll get him for you. And in advanced thanks for my awesome talent, you’re giving me access to plenty of hot men.” She raised her voice to talk over Ginny’s objections. “Hot men that are _not_ your teammates because the thought of someone having sex with your teammates is gross.”

“I don’t need a wingman. I’m seeing someone,” Ginny reminded Cara.

“I believe your exact words were ‘I’m sort of seeing, well maybe dating, or I don’t know, whatever’ someone,” Cara countered.

“I’m still not interested in picking up a guy tonight.”

Cara shrugged. “Fine. I’ll keep my eyes open for you, just in case.” Then she darted into the bathroom before the shoe Ginny threw could hit her.

**************************

 

By the time the women arrived at the bar, the team was already clustered around tables full of nachos, fries, and pitchers of beer.  

“Okay, do you remember what I told you,” Ginny asked Cara as they approached the table.

Cara took sip of her drink before replying. “You said that you bet me $5 that if we held hands we’d be propositioned by someone looking for a threesome before we got in the bar door.”

“And you owe me $5, but that’s not what I meant. What else did I tell you?”

Cara pretended to be deep in thought. “Hmm, something that sounded like ‘Cara, we can NOT drink alcohol in an Uber on the way to the bar’, even though we did.”

Ginny groaned. “Jesus, Cara. Remember, it was something about guys,” she prodded.

Cara dropped the act and laughed. “That my standards are too low if I’m even considering a Padre?”

“Exactly! Now remember that when we meet them okay? Don’t feed their ridiculous egos by even pretending to think they’re cute, interesting, smart or anything else that might be remotely good.”

Cara pushed her glass of rum and Coke into Ginny’s hand. “Here, drink some. You’re cranky when you’re sober.”

Ginny laughed and obligingly took a swallow of the strong drink. “Alright, let’s go.”

It took a few seconds for Ginny to realize Cara was muttering under her breath and another few to actually realize what she was saying. “Why are you whispering ‘no’ to yourself?”

“I’m not. I’m repeating your words from the car ride here.”

“I didn’t say no to anything,” Ginny objected.

“Oh yes, you did,” Cara contradicted. “Remember what you said when we were looking at the team picture? The one you insisted I study, by the way.”

“I didn’t think you were listening.”

“Of course I was listening!”

“I don’t know how when you were busy flirting with the driver and trying to finish your alcohol before he noticed your coffee cup wasn’t full of coffee.”

“I’m a multi-tasker,” Cara said smugly.

“Oh really? Prove it,” Ginny challenged.

Obligingly,Cara  pointed to each player at the table, her finger moving left to right as she replied. “No, no, no, no way in _hell,_ no,” she began.

“What are you doing?” Blip’s voice came from right behind them, making both women jump.

Ginny grimaced guiltily, despite having nothing to feel guilty about. “Nothing.”

He turned towards Cara. “I’ll buy your drinks tonight if you tell me whatever it is that Ginny doesn’t want me to know.”

“She’s reminding me that I can’t have her teammates,” was Cara’s immediate response. “And I don’t let anyone buy me drinks. I buy my own.”

Ginny gasped. “You snitch!”

Blip’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment before an ear to ear grin appeared. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the guys. They’ll want to hear this.”

“No, they really won’t,” Ginny muttered.

 

****************************************

“Okay, here we go,” Blip announced to the table before motioning to Cara to begin. He ignored Ginny’s smack to his shoulder and muttered threats.

Cara grinned a slightly less than sober smile and began reciting from memory.

“Stubs, no. Burger, no. Javanes, no. Blip, no way in hell. Salvi, no. Lawson, don’t be gross. Melky, no. Omar _, Cara, don’t you dare_!”

The rest of her words were drowned out by the Padres players. The team was shouting comments and questions loud enough that several neighboring tables stared. “Why is Lawson gross,” Salvi called out to Cara. Instead of answering, Cara simply pointed to Ginny. Ginny gave in with an eyeroll. “Lawson’s not gross. Well, no more than normal ball player gross. It’s because he’s old enough to be her father.”

“Exactly how old are you,” Salvi asked, having to lean across the table to be heard.

“Are you really asking a woman her age,” Blip asked in disbelief.

Several of the men cringed. “No wonder you’re always sleeping on the sofa. Don’t you know anything about women,” Melky asked.

“At least I’m old enough to know what to do with a woman,” Salvi countered hotly.

“Guys, I’m 24,” Cara interjected, hoping to stop the argument before it escalated.

As one, the team turned to watch Mike’s reaction. Instead of the expected anger, he grinned lazily and tipped his beer towards Ginny in a mocking salute. “I appreciate the compliment to my virility, but fathering a child at 11 would have been a bit much, even for me.”

“You would have been 12,” Ginny countered.

“When the kid was born. But they take 9 months to hatch and that means it would be pretty likely I would have been 11.” Several of the players started counting on their fingers, trying to validate the math.

“Hold on, I want to know why Omar is a ‘Cara don’t you dare’ instead of just a plain ‘no’ like the rest of us,” Melky demanded.

Cara shrugged. “I have no idea.” She turned to Ginny and raised an eyebrow. “Why can’t I have Omar?”

Ginny took a slow swallow of her drink, stalling for time to come up with a reasonable explanation that wouldn’t make anyone want to kill her. She scrambled for something to say but came up blank.

“Omar, it’s because you’re too good for Cara.”

Before anyone could respond, Ginny turned to her friend. “Cara, you’re too good for Omar.”

They team looked at each other. “How does that make sense,” Dusty asked in confusion.

“Are you questioning my logic,” Ginny asked with an arched eyebrow.

Several men exchanged nervous glances. “No,” Shrek replied, the answer more question than statement.

Ginny couldn’t contain her laughter. Several of the guys shook their head in mock shame. “You’re so mean,” Blip complained.

Instead of responding, Ginny grabbed two chairs from a neighboring table and the men obediently shifted their seats to make room for the women. She admired the way that Cara skillfully inserted her chair between Sonny and Butch.

“So what do you do for a living,” Hinkley asked as soon as the shuffling of seats finished.

“Well, I’m an All-Star pitcher,” Sonny replied. “That old man there is an All-Star catcher from the very first games where he played with Babe Ruth…”

Hinkley threw a fry at Sonny at the same time Mike tossed a bottle cap at him. Sonny pretended to hide behind Cara, who threw a fry back at Lawson.

“I’m a barista.” Her head tipped to the side as she considered her words. “Well, I used to be a barista. I’m pretty sure I’m not anymore.”

Ginny leaned forward. “What happened? Did your boss give you a bad time about coming to San Diego,” she asked in concern.

“Oh no, he actually encouraged me to take a few days off to come here.”

“So then what’s the problem?”

“A customer complained to Starbucks corporate about me.”

“Oh really? What did you do,” Salvi asked. The team leaned closer to hear over the noise of the bar, hoping for a good story.

“I asked him to please move his car because he was parked illegally in a handicap spot.”

“And..,” Sonny prompted when she stopped.

“And nothing. I asked him to move and he flipped his shit.”

Blip’s brow creased. “That’s it? You asked him to move his illegally parked car? Hell, he should thank you for telling him instead of letting the cops write him a $200 ticket.”

“What you should have done is taken a tire iron to his knees. Then he would appreciate how important handicap spots are for those who need them.” The team turned at gaped at Omar.

“You penchant for violence is beginning to worry me,” Mike told him.

“What? My high school girlfriend was in a wheelchair and you wouldn’t believe how many assholes think they’re entitled to a spot just because they don’t want to look for another one.”

Cara motioned to Omar. “See,” she told the table. “That’s what I think. But this guy pitched a fit, started screaming, threw his drink at me and refused to leave. Then he called corporate and reported me for telling him to move his car.”

“And they’re going to fire you for it,” Ginny asked incredulously.

Cara shrugged. “Yup.”

“I wish I could have seen that,” Butch told her. “I would have squared that away real quick.”

Cara grabbed her phone from the table and quickly began tapping. “Oh, one of my regulars recorded some of the guy’s tantrum and put it on YouTube. Do you want to see?”

The players crowded around the table to watch the scene play out on her phone. After replaying it several times, Cara set her phone down and grabbed her glass. “And that, my friends, is how you can get yourself fired from Starbucks,” she said with a flourish before downing the rest of her drink.

“Well, no worries. We’ll get you a job here,” Sonny told her with a pat to the back.

Butch leaned around Cara to look at Sonny. “Oh really? Doing what?”

“Babysitting G-Rose,” he responded without missing a beat.

“Hey,” Ginny objected.

“Are you objecting to the nickname or that you need a babysitter,” Salvi asked her with a smirk.

She scowled at him. “Both. But mostly the nickname,” she muttered into her drink.

“Well, here’s your first job then. If you are willing to bring the pitchers of beer back from the bar, not only will you eat for free, you’ll drink for free, too.”

“So my job is to be the beer bitch for the Padres,” Cara asked in amusement.

“Here, let me smack him for you,” Ginny offered, already standing up and reaching across the table.

“It’s not nice to hit. You have to use your big girl words,” Salvi reminded her.

Melky stared. “Holy crap, you just sounded like a real parent.”

Salvi gave him a look. “I am a parent. I’m pretty sure the screaming kids in my house attest to that.”

“I figured your wife was the real parent and you were somewhere between sperm donor and part time nanny,” Melky said with a shrug.

“And on that cheery note, I’m going to go to get us more beer,” Cara interrupted the budding argument. “Salvi can come with me so I don’t get lost and whoever has the credit card can come too because I’m not paying for anyone’s alcohol but my own.”

Voices immediately objected. “Guys, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t let anyone buy me alcohol. I will accept nachos, though. And no, I don’t mind bringing back alcohol for you all.”

“Why don’t you let anyone buy you alcohol,” Stubbs asked.

“Because then expectations happen. The more drinks you accept, the higher those expectations rise. It’s just easier to avoid all offers to begin with,” Ginny explained.

Several of the guys exchanged glances. “What do you mean expectations,” Melky asked.

“She means that if she accepts drinks from a guy he starts to think that she’s interested in more than just a quick thank you,” Mike translated.

Sonny crossed his arms and scowled. “You know not all guys are like that. And we sure aren’t.”

Cara wrapped her arm around his broad shoulder and gave a quick squeeze. “I’m sure you’re not, big guy. Ginny on the other hand…she’s shady.”

Laughter followed Cara and Salvi to the bar, as did Ginny and Mike. Cara and Salvi grabbed the pitchers of beer, leaving Mike behind to pay and help Ginny carry any remaining alcohol. As Cara disbursed the beer around the table, her attention remained focused on the bar.

“I thought Ginny and Mike were friends,” she murmured to Blip.

“They’re close,” Blip confirmed.

“Are you sure?” She gave a nod towards the bar. “It looks like they’re anything but friendly right now.”

Blip studied his friend and...whatever Mike had become. There was something in their body posture that bothered him. The two had always been close, but the past two weeks had changed something. If it had been a month ago, the two would be laughing and joking around, one elbowing the other after an especially good dig. Now Ginny stood stiffly an arm’s length away, fidgeting with impatience for the bartender to bring the remaining drinks. Lawson was leaning with his elbows on the bar, staring straight ahead. His head turned towards Ginny, obviously making a comment but she just gave a shoulder shrug, not taking her eyes off of the bar.

“Did they argue,” Cara wondered.

Blip thought back. “Things were plenty tense during the whole hand holding thing. Maybe it’s from that.”

Ginny turned towards the tables and Cara suddenly became very busy rearranging seats so everyone could reach the new pitchers of beer and plates of nachos. As soon as she plopped down in a chair, Ginny dropped into the one next to it.

“So how long are you going to be in San Diego,” Omar asked.

“Until my parole officer realizes I’m missing,” Cara responded between her bites of nachos.

The men looked back and forth between the women, waiting for one of them to indicate that it was a joke. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Ginny finally cracked. “She’s kidding guys.”

“I am,” Cara agreed. “I’m here until hotel security gets sick of us and kicks us both out.”

“What are you planning on doing to get yourself kicked out,” Blip asked, his eyebrow raised. 

Cara looked at Ginny. “What are my options?”

Ginny pointed a finger at Cara. “No baseball players. I’ll throw you out of the hotel myself if your taste is that bad.”

Cara rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. My standards are too low if I’m considering ball players.”

“Hey! What’s wrong with baseball players,” Salvi asked in outrage.

Ginny tipped her head, apparently in deep thought. “What isn’t wrong with baseball players?”

“Now correct me if I’m wrong Baker, but I’m pretty sure you’re considered a baseball player too,” Lawson interjected.

“That’s the rumor, anyways,” Javanes followed up.

“Obviously she’s the exception,” Cara dismissed. “It’s male ball players that have the reputation.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but what reputation,” Blip asked.

Cara looked at Ginny expectantly but Ginny held up her hands. “Oh no, you started it, you explain.”

Cara shot Ginny a dark look but eventually turned to face her teammates. The previously rowdy bunch was now quiet, leaning forward to stare intently at Cara so they didn’t miss a word due to the background noise of the bar.

“Baseball players have reputations as fuckboys,” she began. The players grinned and Stubbs hi-fived Shrek, obviously not offended by the image. At the other end of the table, Butch and Lawson exchanged suspicious glances, sure that whatever she said next was going to ruffle some feathers.

Ginny shook her head. “I don’t think you guys understand what she’s saying.”

Cara took a long drink from her glass, sure she was going to need the alcohol fueled patience to deal with the team. “Being called a fuckboy isn’t a compliment. A fuckboy is someone who actively hunts down one night stands, running through as many women as possible and bragging about it to everyone. And even worse, he’s a misogynistic, selfish prick who is bad in bed."

"Let's be honest here, guys. We all know ball players have the biggest egos on the planet. Add big egos to the attention a young ball player can get even in single-A ball, and the fact that there are always groupies ready and waiting at team hotels, and it's not hard to see where this got started."

That certainly got a reaction from the team. The men loudly objected, so much so that most of the bar stared at the sudden shouting from the table. A couple of patrons looked concerned that the anger was all directed at the only women in the group, and one guy actually stepped forward to ask if they were okay.

A sharp word from Lawson was all it took to quiet the Padres. The men settled back into their chairs, muttering under their breath but no longer drawing attention to themselves. Both Ginny and Cara assured the patron that they were fine and thanked him for his concern.

There was quiet at the table as the team waited for the bar patrons to stop watching them. “So how did you hear about this supposed reputation that ball players have? How do we know it’s not just you being bitter over an ex who dumped you,” Hinkley asked Cara. He leaned back in his chair, but his body posture was anything but casual.

Ginny spoke up before Cara could respond. “Guys, this is pretty common knowledge.”

“How would you know? I thought you didn’t sleep with ballplayers,” Hinkley asked.

In the blink of an eye the team’s anger redirected from Cara to Hinkley. The players began to tear into him, all the while taking care to keep their voices low so as not to draw attention.

“Enough.” Mike’s voice cut through the arguments. He waited for all eyes to turn to him before setting his phone down on the phone. “The game just ended with a walk off double by Posey. The Giants clinched the second wild card.”

The silence was oppressive as the players absorbed the blow. It was official, their season would end September 30, another lost opportunity to make the playoffs. It wasn’t like it was a surprise; they had been hanging on by their fingernails the past two weeks. Expecting it still didn’t make it hurt less. Ginny could almost taste the disappointment. Maybe if she hadn’t gotten hurt; maybe if she had listened to Al when he wanted to pull her; maybe…

The team sat in silence, Cara’s sudden departure barely acknowledged.

“Damn this sucks,” Salvi finally said.

“Yeah it does,” Sonny agreed.

“Should we tell the other guys that aren’t here,” Ginny asked. She already had her phone in her hand, pulling up her contacts.

“They probably have the same alerts set that we all do,” Butch told her.

“Except Livan,” Omar pipped up. “He might not have figured out how to do it yet.”

Ginny ignored the snorts from several of the players and sent off a quick text to the catcher. “Well, now he knows.”

A hard pound on the table jerked all eyes away from their phones. Cara stood behind Ginny, her hand still on the bottle of whisky she had set down with a snap. Behind her was the bartender with a tray full of shot glasses. The two of them quickly had the glasses filled with a double shot and set in front of each player. Cara gave the man a cheeky smile and promised she would carefully guard the bottle and make sure no one drank too much or drove home. Then she pointed him to Mike, who silently handed over his credit card.

“Okay Padres, enough emotions. We’ll drink the first shot to the end of a ground-breaking season. The second one, that’s a celebration in advance for next season’s kick ass playoff run.” Cara smiled at the players stunned expressions and held up her glass. Ginny immediately raised hers. Mike and Blip shared a look before they both raised theirs. A quick tap of glasses and a moment of silence passed before the coughs and wheezes that always follow questionable quality whisky sounded at the table. This time Ginny poured the shots that the players again raised as one.

“To next season. May it be a kick ass run for my team that is _not_ made up of fuckboys” she said with a laugh. The second shots went down only slightly easier than the first, but the mood at the table lightened. The veterans made an effort to be upbeat and Cara and Ginny effortlessly drew the players into laughing conversation. The night became one of telling ancedotes about each other, the constant razing that came so easily to the Padres. As the alcohol took effect, the stories became more outrageous and the laughter louder. 

Eventually Mike and Blip made sure the players got a safe ride home, for once comfortable with each other as they shook their heads at the terrible rendition of ‘I Will Survive’ that came from the Uber car holding Salvi, Stubbs, and Hinkley. “We’re gonna have to triple that poor driver’s tip,” Blip said with a wince.

Lawson held the door open for Ginny and Cara to slip into the backseat of their cab. Ginny rolled her eyes at him, but Cara gave him a quick pat on the cheek and a playful wink before sliding in. The car pulled away from the curb, leaving both Mike and Blip standing on the sidewalk shaking their heads and chuckling.

***************************

“Remember how I was just telling you how disappointed I was in the selection of men at the bar,” Cara whispered to Ginny.

“Of course I remember. You talked about it the entire ride back. The Uber driver felt so bad she offered to drive us to a men’s strip joint,” Ginny whispered back.

“I’ve found a guy. I’m gonna go scope him out.”

Ginny craned her neck, looking around the lobby. “Where?”

“Quit looking,” Cara hissed. She wrapped an arm around Ginny and steered her to the elevator. “I’ve got my key to your room, so don’t wait up for me. I’ll text you and let you know what’s going on.”

Ginny thought about protesting, but Cara was smart and knew how to read people. She would be safe. Plus, Ginny wouldn’t be such a hypocrite as to pretend that she objected to one night stands.

“Keep me posted. And don’t forget to make him put his phone and computer in the closet. That way no videos and photos can be taken.”

The elevator doors opened and Ginny stepped in. She turned to show Cara her crossed fingers and Cara blew her a kiss, just as the doors slid shut.

Ginny laughed to herself. She had missed hanging out with someone her age. No, what she had really missed was having girl friends, for the first time in her life, to be young and carefree with. She was happy, damn happy, that Cara was here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while since I've posted a new chapter, but just know that I'll keep writing as long as there are people that will keep reading. I have a new chapter and two new stand-alones in the works, so I'm here even if I'm not posting as frequently. Darn real life getting in the way of my writing! And for the record, the scene at Starbucks happened to my manager years ago. The employee was indeed fired.
> 
> Let me know what you think! You know how much I love comments.


	16. Surprised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the space of a morning, Ginny's world turns upside down.

The sound of the door opening brought Ginny bolt up in bed. She smiled at the sight of Cara straggling into the room wearing last night’s clothes and what looked like a serious case of whisker burn.

“Well,” she finally asked when Cara said nothing.

“Well, what?”

“Tell me about last night!”

Cara dropped onto the sofa only to bounce right back up with a grimace. “I need to lie down.” She shuffled pass Ginny and flopped face first onto the bed.

Ginny winced sympathetically. “Sore?”

Cara groaned her agreement, her voice muffled by the bedding.

“Was it worth it?”

“Oh hell yes,” Cara said with such emphasis that Ginny laughed.

“So tell me about him.”

Cara turned her face towards Ginny. “I’d give him a B+ overall.”

“Why B+?”

“Because while he didn’t like being given direction, his technique, stamina, and observation skills were amazing, making the direction a bit of a moot point. And is there anything sexier than someone speaking Spanish to you?”

Ginny grinned at Cara’s dreamy sigh. “So international guys do it for you, huh?”

“Well this one did. Repeatedly. All night.”

“Hence the soreness.”

Cara hid her face in the covers, but her cheeks pulled back into smile. “He was worth it. We might hook up again. He’s staying at the hotel temporarily because he just moved to the US and he’s looking for a place to live.”

“Where’s he from,” Ginny asked in idle curiosity as she took a drink from the bottle water beside her bed.

“Cuba.”

Ginny spit water across her bed, coughing and wheezing to try and clear the liquid she had inhaled in her shock.

“Cuba? What was his name?”

Cara rolled over and pushed herself up to sit propped back against the bed. “Are you choking? I know the Heimlich, but I don’t think the Heimlich works on drowning.”

“His name. What’s his name?”

“Livan something. Why, do you know him?”

“Holy shit. Yeah I know him. He’s my catcher.”

Cara studied her for a second before grinning. “Girl, you have the best job in the world. You get to stare at his junk for hours every day. I’m absolutely jealous.”

“Cara! I do not stare at his junk for hours every day. At most it’s just when I’m pitching, and I’m looking at his fingers and his glove.”

Cara rolled her eyes. “There’s something wrong with you if you aren’t taking the opportunity to enjoy the scenery. Surely that’s a perk of the job.”

Ginny’s eyebrows pulled together into a frown. “Cara, I can’t,” she began.

“Why are you doing that,” Cara interrupted.

Ginny blinked in surprise. “Doing what?”

“You’ve been rubbing your cast since I came in. Does your arm hurt?”

Ginny looked down and, sure enough, her hand was rubbing over her upper arm. “It’s just sore. I must have slept on it wrong.”

“But you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Now let’s get back to you staring at Livan’s crotch all day.”

Ginny’s cell buzzed on her bedside table, and a quick glance at the screen had her lunging to grab the phone before it fell onto the carpet.

“Good morning, Oscar,” she said by way of greeting.

“Ginny, I was hoping you could come down to the park for a meeting this morning.”

Ginny frowned. “Sure. Is something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s just one of those things,” Oscar rushed out. Something about the tone of his voice sounded odd to her; maybe a little forced or nervous.

“When do you want to meet?”

“Could you be here in an hour?”

Ginny glanced at the clock. At 8:30, the rush hour traffic would be in full force. It might be faster to walk the couple of miles instead of taking a cab. “Yeah, I can make it.”

“Great. Meet me at my office. I’ll let my secretary know you’re on your way.”

“I’ll see..,” she began before the dial tone sounded in her ear. With a sigh, she pushed out of bed, stretching until her joints popped.

“So that was your boss?”

“Yeah, the General Manager. He wants to have a meeting in an hour.”

“Well that sounds like a boatload of fun. I’m just gonna crash here until you get back,” Cara said, already wiggling under the covers and snuggling into the pillow.

“Do you mind if I stay at the park a few hours? I want to get my workout done and I have physical therapy, too.”

“Take as long as you want. I plan to sleep until you come back.”

Ginny couldn’t resist. “You’re awfully tired if you plan to nap for hours. Do you have big plans for tonight?”

Cara smiled at the teasing but didn’t open her eyes. “I sure do. All nine inches of them.”

 

********************

Ginny numbly walked through the labyrinth of hallways in Petco, her feet automatically taking her to the clubhouse while her mind was still in Oscar’s office.

_Allegations of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment. Harassment._ The words continuously replayed in her mind, driving out all other thoughts and stealing away her ability to process them and all the implications they brought.

Someone had filed a complaint with the Padres human resources. It alleged that she sexual harassed a member of the Padres organization. They wouldn’t tell her who; it was confidential. And while they didn’t order her to keep the investigation secret, HR had repeatedly pointed out that the more people that knew about the allegations, the better chance it would leak to the media. The thought of that horror nearly had her vomiting on Oscar’s plush carpet.

And then, as if the whole thing wasn’t bad enough, the HR woman had pointed out that it wasn’t common for players on the DL to be in the dugout during games and that it might be wise to follow that guideline now. It had taken all of her self-control not to throw something when Oscar had reluctantly agreed. But then, it’s not as if she could have done anything except hurt herself if she had tried throwing anything but air, so she bit the inside of her cheek until she could calmly excuse herself from the office and the meeting from hell.

“Miss Baker?” Ginny jumped as a voice broke into her internal turmoil. Benny, the security guard stationed at the clubhouse door stared at her in concern.

“Sorry, Benny. I was daydreaming.” She forced a smile at the older man.

“You’ve been standing here glaring at the door for a while.” His brows furrowed as he studied her. “Is something bothering you? I’m a great listener, you know. If you need to get something off your chest, I’m happy to help.”

His sincere offer softened the panic and her next smile was genuine. “I’m fine, but thank you for your offer, Benny. I’ll take you up on that sometime. Heaven knows that the boys give me plenty to be upset about.” A nod at the clubhouse door was all it took for Benny to know what boys she was referring to.

His laugh warmed her heart. “They surely do, Miss Ginny, they surely do.”

As she walked through the clubhouse, she carefully studied the entire area, trying to think of anything she could have done that would warrant the accusations. She didn’t spend any time in the kitchen and was normally alone in the gym when she did her workouts. There was the trainer’s room, of course, but there were always several people in there so she just couldn’t imagine that would be where something inadvertent might have happened.

She stopped in the middle of the clubhouse slowly turning as she looked at the names above the lockers and wondered who it was that had made the allegations. As much as she wished it was someone outside of the team, she just didn’t spend time outside of the clubhouse with other employees. It had to have been someone on the team. Was it one of her fellow pitchers? Maybe someone from the bullpen who wanted her spot? Or was it one of the September call-ups that had resented her move to the majors? Or, oh my God, had she really done something that crossed the line into inappropriate? Had she harassed someone and not known?

Her heart started to race, and her chest tightened until she was gasping for breath. Numbness started in her fingers and slowly spread up her arms. Logically she knew it was a panic attack, but the feeling was still so intense, so overwhelming, that she couldn’t prevent it from escalating until all reason was driven from her mind. All of her thoughts jumbled until she couldn’t remember all of the strategies that her therapist taught her to deescalate the crisis.

The sound of laughter jerked her attention away from her panic and towards the door. She couldn’t let someone find her falling apart in the clubhouse. She’d rather be boiled in oil or, even worse, traded to the Marlins, than let anyone see her weak. She snuck to her cubby and silently let the door close, hoping that Benny hadn’t mentioned her presence to whoever was entering now.

Sinking down in her chair, she focused on pulling herself together. She was better than this, stronger than this. She wasn’t going to let this destroy her and all that she had worked for. She was living her dream, _Pop’s_ dream, and some made-up bullshit wasn’t going to take that from her.

She quickly changed into workout clothes and yanked her door open, nearly storming across the clubhouse to the weight room. And there at his locker, with his back turned to her and as naked as the day he was born, was Omar. Her feet froze to the ground for a few second because, damn it, she was only human and Omar was beautiful. As she watched he casually wrapped a towel around his waist, tucking the ends in to keep the towel tight against his body. While white baseball pants left little to the imagination, they were nowhere near sheer enough to show the beautiful lines of Omar’s body. She could appreciate the art without actually wanting to own it, she rationalized.

She shook off the temporary spell, and tried to silently retreat, but she must have made a sound because Omar turned around to see who was behind him. They both froze as their eyes met and Ginny had to fight to keep her eyes from wandering down his body in curiosity. Damn it, where was this urge coming from? She really was going to deserve those allegations if she didn’t get a hold of herself.

Her face flamed at her thoughts and never had she been so happy for her skin tone because it hid her blush. Poor Omar wasn’t so lucky; she could see his pink cheeks from across the room. The last thing she wanted was for this to get uncomfortable, so she tried to play it off.

“Sorry I didn’t let you know I was here,” she told him. “No, it’s okay, you don’t need to pull on your jersey, it’s no big deal. Seriously.” She sighed and tried again. “I was hoping you would come in early. Do you want to dance for cardio? I know it’s not our normal day, so you don’t have to.”

Omar cleared his throat. “Of course we can dance. Give me a second and I’ll meet you there.”

She gave a quick smile and headed for the weight room. She hoped he got over his embarrassment quickly. It was going to get really awkward if he didn’t. Not that she was embarrassed at all. It was just anger at Oscar that had her splashing cold water on her face to cool her cheeks down so Omar wouldn’t feel the heat radiating off of them. She had seen many a naked baseball player in her day, either through accident on her part or intention on theirs. There was no need for this to be any different and she would just have to remind him of that. She wasn’t going to lose her dance partner over something silly like him having the perfect body and being too modest to flaunt it.

 

*****************

Ginny gratefully accepted the water bottle Omar offered. She grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off of her face between gulps.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Ginny nearly spit water across the room. “What do you mean,” she asked, working to keep her tone casual while her mind was racing. Did he know something about the meeting or the allegations? Was this a subtle lead into that conversation? Had the complainant actually told him what he had done?

“You’re stiff today. Hungover?”

Ginny chuckled. “Not even close. I didn’t sleep well is all.” And now she felt like a fool for being so paranoid to suspect Omar of anything but being a nice guy.

“Your arm was so sore it kept you up all night? Did you overdo it in PT?”

Ginny frowned. “Why do you think my arm is sore?”

Omar shrugged. “You’ve changed your arm position. This morning you started a little lower than normal, and just now the only thing holding your arm up was the death grip you had on my shoulder.”

Ginny grimaced. “Sorry about that. I just slept funny last night. I grabbed some meds right before we started so I’m good to go.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before dropping her water bottle and towel back on the floor. “If my fingers bruised your shoulder, just tell the guys you had a wild night with blonde twins. That is the go-to male fantasy, right?” She smiled wryly and turned away.

Omar grabbed her hand as she walked by, gently tugging her to a stop. She turned to him with raised eyebrows. This was the first time he had ever touched her without permission, and she wondered at his motivation.

“Let’s try this again. What’s wrong?”

Ginny blinked in surprise. “I told you, my arm is fine,” she began.

“I’m not talking about your arm,” Omar interrupted. “Something is obviously wrong and it has nothing to do with your injury.”

Ginny’s gaze slid away from his, unable to meet his eyes as she lied. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”

She felt Omar’s sigh. “Ginny, if you don’t want to tell me, I can’t make you. You know you can trust me though, right? Anything you say will stay between us.”

His sweet offer and the sincerity in his voice brought her eyes back to his. His gentle smile made tears begin to well in her eyes and, without thinking, she stepped forward to rest her forehead against his chest. Her whole purpose had been to hide her watery eyes from his careful gaze, but as soon as she touched him, she realized how desperately she needed to know that someone cared, that she wasn't alone. She had friends, and there was Noah too, but she felt so raw at that moment that a phone call wasn’t going to work. And yes that sounded pathetic, even to her, but apparently she really was that pathetic to need comfort from a guy that she didn’t even know outside of work.

Omar stiffened in surprise and Ginny had a momentary fear that she had gone too far, made things too uncomfortable between them. But then he relaxed with a sigh, and his arms came around her, loosely holding her against him in a hug. After a moment, he rested his cheek against the top of her head. “I know you have an image to protect, that you’re invincible and confident and just about perfect, but you don’t have to wear that image here. You can be yourself.”

Ginny shifted and debated pulling away, but his arms tightened around her and she relaxed against him again. She knew this would come back to bite her in the ass, of course she knew that, but damn it, she needed to believe, for even a second, that his words were true. “Omar, this is the last place I can be myself. I need my image here more than anywhere else.”

Omar pulled back looked down at her. “Why is that?”

Ginny sighed and stepped back. Omar let his arms drop to his side, but his gaze was intent on her. “I can’t explain right now,” she told him.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. Not yet anyways.”

Omar gave an abrupt nod and stepped back. “You don’t have to do everything on your own, you know. You have friends you can count on.”

Ginny grinned at him. “You can always count on friends you’ve seen naked. They’ll do anything to prevent blackmail.”

Omar’s face flamed with his blush. “You Peeping Tom,” he accused before laughing. “Turn about is fair play, Ginny. You can only get away with this until I return the favor.”

What would have made her bristle in outrage a week ago just made her laugh today. “I’ve been warned. Now come on, let’s dance. Eventually one of the other guys will straggle in and I’ll be damned if I have to dance with him. For a team full of athletes, their lack of coordination is horrifying.”

Omar was still laughing as he swung her into a turn. And for the first time since she stepped foot into Petco Park that day, she relaxed.

 

******************************************************

Ginny kicked the wheels on his chair to get his attention. “Lawson, we need to talk.”

He pulled his eyes up from his phone and grinned at her. “You know, if any other woman on the planet said that to me, I’d be running for my car.”

She shook her head. “It’s not good that you’ve heard those words so often that you have an exit plan, old man.”

Mike rocked back in his chair, his hands reaching above his head in a stretch that resulted in audible pops from his back. “So what’s up?”

“Not out here.” She turned towards her cubby, knowing that Mike would be right behind her. She waited for him to enter before clicking the door shut behind him.

“Alright Baker, what’s the big secret?”

“I got called into a meeting with the front office this morning.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Suddenly, Ginny couldn’t hold still, couldn’t stop fidgeting. She shifted her weight from leg to leg and her fingers tapped restlessly against her Lyrica covered thigh. “It didn’t go so well,” she managed.

Mike crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against a wall. “I’d guess not. You look like you’re ready to take flight, rookie. Calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

Ginny tried to hold still, she really did, but the anxiety was creeping up, pushing her to relieve the tension any way she could. “It was with Oscar and some front office ladies I’ve never met before.”

“Rookie! You’re making me motion sick. Sit down so I can concentrate on what you’re saying instead of not throwing up in your closet.”

A reluctant smile tipped up the corners of Ginny’s mouth. “You know, I doubt this is what Omar imagined when he said to talk to someone. He probably thought I’d actually have a supportive audience.”

Mike straightened from the wall. “What do you mean when you talked to Omar? Are you guys hanging out?” His glare took her by surprise.

“No,” she answered, drawing out the word in confusion. “Why?”

“You need to stay away from him.”

Ginny’s brows furrowed. “And again, why?”

“Because you aren’t doing him any favors. I’m telling you, leave the guy alone.”

Ginny had years of experience in keeping her face an expressionless mask, and it served her well as she stared at her captain. She wanted to gape at him, her eyes wide in surprise and mouth open in shock at his unexpectedly fierce order. Instead, all he saw was her raise a single eyebrow. “Exactly what do you think I’m going to do to him? Omar’s a nice guy.”

“I know. It gets him in trouble.”

Ginny had to grit her teeth to keep from responding to that loaded statement. “Look, I didn’t bring you here to talk about what a great guy Omar is.”

“Thank God for that,” Mike muttered.

Ginny nearly growled. “Are you going to listen yet?”

“I am listening,” he retorted.

“I’m trying to tell you about my meeting,” she bit out. “It would go a lot faster if you would stop interrupting me.”

“By all means Baker, tell me about this all important meeting with Oscar,” Lawson responded with an expansive wave of his arm.

Ginny scowled. “Oscar was there with two women from Human Resources,” she began.

A shrill ring interrupted her. Mike pulled out his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans and glanced at the screen. His eyes widened slightly and his eyebrows rose. “Give me a sec Baker, I have to get this. I’ll be right back.” And before she could respond, he brushed past her and out into the hallway.

Ginny stood in the doorway and watched him walk away, so frustrated she wanted to scream. Still, she was a rational human being and she knew there were plenty of calls that couldn’t be ignored. Lawyers, agents, and doctors didn’t like to be made to wait for a call back. It must have been important for him to just walk out.

Then she heard him say, “Hey Rach, what’s up?”

**********************************

 

Ginny rushed into her hotel room, her phone up to her ear. Cara rolled over to sleepily stare at her friend but when she would have spoken, Ginny held up her hand for silence.

“Hey, this is Ginny Baker. Yeah, it’s good to finally talk to you too. Does your offer still stand? And it’s okay if I bring a friend? That’s great. Just keep me posted on an ETA. See you soon.”

She ended the call and turned to Cara with a grin. “Now’s your chance to wear your clubbing outfit. Get dressed, we’re going out.”

“It’s barely 11 in the morning.”

“I know. But Drake is sending his plane now, and we have to be at the airport as soon as it lands if we’re going to make it to his concert in Miami tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while guys, but I just couldn't get this written until I got the other two stories out of my mind. I blame Ginny for being so stubborn and insisting on making them take priority. :-)
> 
> This is another story line that just felt inevitable if the show had carried into a second season. I really debated writing this, especially since I don't want it to appear political in any possible away, but I just can't get past the feeling that it would happen in real life. And so I stepped out on a limb with this and hope you all don't hate it.
> 
> Let me know what you think.


	17. A green eyed monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny's friends and teammates struggle to understand her sudden absence until they find out the cause.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are multiple POVs.

“Something’s wrong with Ginny.”

Blip nearly jumped out of his skin. Damn Omar and his ninja abilities. Blip was the only person in the weight room and he still hadn’t heard the man come in.

“Why? What have you heard,” Blip asked. He wasn’t going to waste Omar’s time by pretending not to know what he was referring to. At this point, he’d take any information he could get and Omar was close enough to Ginny that he might have an idea what was going on.

“She was upset, really upset, the last morning she was here.”

“Did she say why?”

Omar shook his head with a frown. “No, not really. But when I asked her what was wrong she told me she couldn’t talk about it yet. Not wouldn’t talk about it, but couldn’t.”

“Damn,” Blip sighed, rubbing the back of his neck to ease the tension. “I was hoping she might have said something to you.”

“So she didn’t mention anything to you?” Omar’s question sounded more like a demand.

“No. Evelyn doesn’t know anything either.”

Omar bit the side of his lip. “What about Lawson,” he asked with reluctance. “Does he know anything?”

“I don’t know,” Blip admitted. “I haven’t talked to him lately.”

“Lucky bastard,” Omar muttered under his breath.

“Mike gave you a bad time about dancing in the weight room?”

Omar snorted. “Yeah, you could say that,” he said. After a moment’s pause, he added, “Do you think there is something going on between Ginny and Mike, at least on his end?”

Omar’s sudden question gave Blip pause. “Ginny has a strict rule about not dating ball players and she would never break it,” Blip said slowly. “I’m not sure what’s bouncing around in Mike’s head, but I can’t believe he would do anything that could effectively kill her career.”

Omar crossed his arms and scowled. “I don’t know. We both saw how he was watching her in the club when she left the dance floor and,” he paused, struggling to put his thoughts into words. “And, he’s just...odd with her. Maybe protective? Possessive?” He made a frustrated sound. “I don’t know how to describe it. He’s just less Lawson with her.”

Blip fought with the instinctive need to defend his best friend/former best friend/whatever he was, and really thought about Omar’s observations. “I’m not sure what’s going on,” Blip admitted. “I’ve been playing with Ginny since A ball, and I’ve seen one of two things happen with her teammates. Either they loathe her for whatever reason and stay away as much as possible, or she becomes a confidente for them. It’s easier for most guys to talk about relationships and emotional stuff with woman, and Ginny is a safe person for them to do that.”

“Well, we know Lawson doesn’t stay away from her,” Omar pointed out.

“True.”

Several minutes passed in silence, both men lost in thought. Finally Omar gave a resigned sigh and accepted the inevitable. “We’re going to have to talk to Lawson. Do you think he’ll tell us anything?”

“Oh, he’ll tell us what we want to know. I guarantee it,” Blip said, his grim tone of voice doing nothing to mask his anger.

 

**************************************************

It wasn’t often Mike Lawson felt guilty. Almost all of his experience in guilt came from either his marriage or the moment in his youth when he realized that he played a key role in his mom’s cons. But as he sat staring at the blank screen on his phone, he couldn’t lie to himself any longer.

He had screwed up. Badly. He hadn’t realized how badly until Ginny refused to answer his calls or return his texts. And what made it even worse was that he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what had pushed her over the edge. Yeah, things had been tense during the whole hand holding mess, and their argument in the clubhouse certainly hadn’t helped keep things friendly, but he thought they had moved beyond that.

In hindsight, it was probably not his best idea to take Rachel’s call when Ginny was trying to talk to him. He didn’t know what Ginny wanted to say or if it was even important. It could have been something about Dusty’s prank on Hinkley, or, God help him, she might have found out about his talk with Omar. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t what she wanted to tell him so much as she just didn’t appreciate him putting her on hold so he could talk to Rachel. In his experience, women could be weird about that; either they really, really cared or they didn’t care at all.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He was lying to himself. He knew damn well when it went from ignoring him to blocking him. It was after he left a semi-sober voicemail tearing into her for skipping the last two games to fly to Miami and party. Did she really think that photos of her and Drake going in and out of clubs wouldn’t be all over the internet? She should know better than anyone that there was no such thing as anonymity.

He was man enough to admit that he made a mistake. What he needed was information and advice, but that wasn’t going to happen. Blip still wasn’t talking to him six weeks after the failed Cubs trade. And because Blip was off limits for a conversation, that meant Evelyn was too, which made getting the info from Baker’s best friends impossible. He had no way of reaching Cara, who was partying with Ginny in Miami, and she wasn’t likely to talk with him anyways if Baker had told her whatever it was that Mike had screwed up. Omar was also a no-go. Not only wouldn’t the man admit to spending any alone time with her, he would never betray her trust by revealing anything she said or did anyways.

And so Mike sat in his chair in the clubhouse, facing his locker to hide his expression from the team as he racked his brain for a way to handle this.

“Hey Lawson, what do you think,” Salvi called out.

“SHHH, he napping,” was Shrek’s immediate response, delivered in a mock whisper for ultimate effect.

Mike spun his chair around and smirked at the assembled players. “Not napping, Shrek, ignoring. I was trying to ignore you.”

“So what’s going on with Baker? Why did she abandon us to go party with Drake?”

Voohries snorted. “Hell, I’d abandon you all for Drake, too.” That brought derisive comments from the older players, although several of the younger players loudly agreed with the sentiment.

“Far be it from me to understand anything Baker does,” Mike replied when the noise died down. “Women, I understand. I’m an expert on women. Baker, though, she defies any sort of logic.”

When the team was done laughing and razzing him for his expertise, Salvi turned to Blip. “Alright Sanders, spill. What’s going on with Baker?”

Blip gave a shrug. “I don’t know. She hasn’t said a word about it to me.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat had everyone turning. Johnny Benson stood up and moved to the center of the room. The reliever was only recently back from a year stint on the DL after Tommy John surgery, and Mike could admit to himself that he didn’t know much about the guy. Benson had come over at last year’s trade deadline, only to go down with his injury two weeks later. Mike knew the man was friends with several of the lunatics that were the Padres bullpen, but anything beyond that was news to him.

“I think I might know something about it.” The guy ran his hand over his short cropped hair and cleared his throat again. His discomfort was so apparent that several of the guys shifted in their chairs in an instinctive need to avoid anything that might even remotely involve emotions.

“So let’s hear it,” Mike prompted.

“My wife. Well, soon to be ex-wife I guess,” Johnny began before stopping abruptly.

“Oh man, I’m sorry,” Butch said, moving over to give the guy a hard hug. Most of the players murmured their agreement. Mike’s heart clenched in remembered pain of that gut-wrenching moment when he had to acknowledge his failed marriage for the first time.

“Yeah, well.” He paused again, staring down at his shoes for a long moment for squaring his shoulders and meeting the eyes of his teammates. “My wife has always been jealous, but since I’ve joined the Padres, it’s gotten really bad. I couldn’t figure out why, until last night.”

“When we were arguing, she told me that she was sure I was cheating on her, and she knew who I was cheating with.” He rubbed his hands over his hair again, so obviously distressed that Mike pushed out of his chair and walked over to stand a foot away from the man.

“Alright Benson, how do you want to do this,” Mike asked him, his voice so quiet no one else could hear him, even in the silent room. “Do you want this to stay between us? We can have this talk, just you and me if it helps. Or we can include these mooks if you want. It doesn’t matter what you choose, just look me in the eyes and tell me what’s going on.”

The reliever took a deep breath and his eyes met Mike’s. “My wife called the Padres’ HR office and filed an anonymous complaint,” he confessed in a voice loud enough to carry to the team. “She accused Ginny Baker of sexual harassment of the players, specifically me and a player that’s no longer with the Padres.”

“Oh, shit,” Salvi said on a breath.

“Katie knows that you don’t get to be around the clubhouse and dugout when you’re on the DL, so it makes sense that Ginny suddenly vanished from San Diego. HR won’t give me any information about the investigation, but I went to them this morning and told them everything that happened.”

Johnny looked down at the floor, before looking up to face the team. He took in a ragged breath, clearly trying to suppress tears. “All I can tell you is that it’s very unlikely to go the press. I sat down with my lawyer and the head of the Padres’ PR department. I told them repeatedly that nothing happened and they seemed to believe me. They’ll make sure nothing leaks, so there won’t be blow back on anyone.”

“Except you,” Blip added quietly, his tone understanding.

“Except me,” Johnny agreed. “My wife,” he paused. “I mean, Katie, is fully aware that saying a word about anything to the press violates the pre-nup agreement. She’s furious and jealous, but that will all be directed at me and my bank account. I doubt she’ll say a word about this to anyone outside of family.”

Never had Mike been so grateful for a childhood that taught him how to hide his emotions. Mike knew the team was watching him. They all waited for him to make a proclamation, to tell them what to do and how to handle things with the Padres, with Ginny, and maybe, God forbid, the press. And Johnny looked at him like he was two seconds away from falling apart and Mike was all that was holding the reliever to this side of sanity.

What Mike wanted to do was storm the front office and ask what the actual fuck they were doing. How were they not prepared for this possibility? After the shit show that happened in single A ball, did it never once occur to the geniuses in HR that something else could go wrong?

But then he looked, really _looked_ , at Benson, and his stomach clenched in remembered pain. He had been there and knew the devastating bewilderment that came from watching the marriage that you were sure was forever, come to a sudden death. And so he bent all of his self-imposed rules and lowered his defenses just a bit because when it came down to it, he knew exactly how Benson felt and what the guy needed.

He pulled Johnny into a hard hug and slapped him a couple of times on the back. “Come on man, let’s go to my office,” he told the reliever quietly. “We can talk there and share sad stories over the best Gatorade the Padres can buy.”

Benson held on to Mike for a moment before he let a sigh, the kind of sigh that made the entire body shudder with the effort to hold in soul deep emotions. He stepped back from his captain and used the back of his hand to swipe away the tears on his face. Several of the guys stepped up to give the guy a hug or at least a head rub as he made his way to the training room.

As Mike followed the reliever out, he made eye contact with Blip. For the first time since the trade deadline, he knew exactly what his best friend was thinking.

They needed to talk to Ginny. Now.

 

*******************************

“Ginny, can you hear me?”

“What?”

Noah yanked the phone away from his face before her shout, and the thumping music in the background, ruptured his eardrum. A brief scan around the crowded conference room was all he needed to find a path for a quick exit. He walked past potential investors and business executives with no more than a nod of acknowledgement. He’d have to go make amends later, but right now his focus was on Ginny.

“Noah?” He could hear her shout even with the phone at his side. He quickly shoved through two more doors until he was in an empty staff hallway.

“Yeah, I’m here. How are you?”

“Are you there? I can’t hear you!”

“I’m here,” Noah shouted back into the phone. To hell with anyone who was walking by. If they had a problem with him talking to his girlfriend, they could take it up with him later.

“It’s really loud here. I’m in that new club in Miami. You wouldn’t believe what their VIP section is like! Can you believe they sell a bottle of champagne for over $1000?”

Yes, Noah could because he had several of the bottles himself. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he did like an occasional glass of champagne and, damn it, why should he feel guilty about it?

“Are you okay? Is something wrong,” he asked. It was hard to express concern via shouting over a cell phone and he hoped she didn’t take offense with his tone.

“Hold on,” she told him. He could hear muffled conversations, undoubtedly quieted by her palm over the phone speaker.  He stared down at his shoes and tried to calm the rising certainly that something bad was going on. Ginny was a strong woman; it was one of the things he found so sexy about her. She wouldn’t be afraid to take on whatever problem came her way and solve it to her satisfaction. He must be over-reacting. God he hoped he was over-reacting.

“Okay, I’m back,” Ginny’s voice murmured in his ear. “We’re leaving to go to a different club. I’m heading down to have the valet get our car, so we have a couple of minutes of quiet. Well, quieter anyways.” She let out a breathy laugh and he smiled at the sound. God, he loved her laugh.

“How is Miami? Are you having fun? And how did I not know you were friends with Drake? I would have hit you up for tickets weeks ago,” he teased, hoping for another laugh.

“Oh, we weren’t friends,” she contradicted, with another one of her chuckles. “Well, we’re a little more now. Now we’re at the drinking friends level, I guess.”

“So what brought about the sudden change of plans? Did something happen? I would have sent my plane to you if you had told me,” he said. He didn’t want to sound like a jealous boyfriend. He wasn’t jealous. He trusted her, he really did, but he was also aware that he came on too strong after their first night together and he wasn’t sure if his faux pas had killed any chance of a relationship with her.

There was a long pause on her end. Just when he pulled the phone away from his ear to see if the connection had been lost, she responded. “Something came up and I had some free time. Cara is with me and it seemed like a good time to have a girls weekend, that’s all.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” he said for lack of anything else to say. He should accept her words at face value, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Granted, he hadn’t known Ginny personally for very long, but what he did know of her made this sudden change from baseball player to party girl seem very out of character.

“Hey, my phone is going to die. I’ll call you when I’m home, okay?”

Noah frowned, but what else could he do? “That sounds good. Have fun. I miss you.”

“I…,” was the only response he got before the line went dead.

He stared at the black screen of his phone for a minute before slowly slipping it back into his pocket. He leaned back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. There was something going on with Ginny, something that had upset her in some way. If he wasn’t trapped at the stupid conference with the best in the tech industry, he’d fly to Miami and ask her in person. But he had to stay, owed it to the investors and the thousands of techies that had paid way too much money to see the newest releases from his company.

He closed his eyes and sighed. If he didn’t hear from her by tomorrow night, he’d hack the Padres’ HR files and pull up the cell numbers for her teammates. He’d start at the top of the list and call every one of them until he figured out what happend.

He pushed away from the wall and focused until he could regain the happy, confident image that people expected him to have. Before he opened the door, he finally admitted the truth to himself with a grimace.

He’d even call Mike Lawson if that’s what it took to help Ginny.

 

********************

Omar leaned against the wall in the hallway leading to the batting cages and studied his phone, working up his courage to send the text. After a moment of hovering, his thumb clicked send.

 **Omar:** Hey, how are you? Having fun in Miami?

After a minute of waiting he tucked his phone back in his pocket. Of course she wouldn’t answer. She was probably out partying. And even if she wasn’t, there was no guarantee she’d want to talk to him.

He had almost reached the mesh cage when his phone vibrated.

 **Ginny:** I’m good. Miami is okay.

 **Omar:** And how is Drake? Voohries wishes you had taken him with. He’s jealous.

 **Ginny:** Lol. Drake is fine. Very nice guy.

Omar bit his lip, trying to find the best way to approach the topic. There was no good way, he knew that, but he didn’t want to make it any worse. Yeah, the team had agreed not to say anything until HR talked to her first, but he had spent the entire night thinking about it until he gave up on sleep and went running on his treadmill. Only when he was exhausted did he finally come to a decision. She needed to hear about it from a friend, not HR, and he was the only one that could do it.

 **Omar:** So, we just had a team meeting, players only.

 **Ginny:** Without me??? Not nice. What about?

 **Omar:** Johnny Benson is getting divorced.

 **Ginny:** Oh man, that sucks. Poor guy.

 **Omar:** Can you call me? I hate having to text all of this.

 **Ginny:** I’m in a limo with three other people on the way to a restaurant. No privacy.

 **Omar:** Want me to call after the game?

 **Ginny:** Just tell me know.

Omar’s heart was in his throat, but she needed to hear it from him.

 **Omar:** Johnny said his wife called HR and accused you of harassment.

 **Ginny:** Oh my God. Why?

 **Omar:** She’s jealous of any woman, but fixated on you, I guess.

 **Ginny:** And he told everyone? The whole team knows?

 **Omar:** Yeah. Everyone is pissed.

There was a long pause, enough that Omar got nervous.

 **Ginny:** At me?

 **Omar:** No! At her. No one blames you for this BS. Not your fault.

 **Ginny:** Really?

 **Omar:** Really. Come back and see yourself. Better hurry though. There are only a few games left, then a lot of the guys will be going back to their homes out of San Diego.

 **Ginny:** I’ll try.

 **Ginny:** And Omar? Thanks.

 **Omar:** For what?

 **Ginny:** For telling me yourself. I’d much rather hear it from you than someone else. You’re the best.

 **Omar:** You’re welcome. See you soon?

 **Ginny:** See you tomorrow. Bring your dancing music.

 **Omar:** It’s a date.

Omar tucked his phone into his pocket and smiled as he headed back to the clubhouse. He had made the right choice. Ginny would come out of this head held high and, hopefully, her faith in her friends restored. His smile turned into a smirk. She trusted him, even when she didn’t trust Mike Lawson. He could live with that.

 

***************************

Livan pressed the phone against his cheek with his shoulder, listening to the tones while he tried to put on his socks. He was late for practice, even later than normal, and he needed to hit the field. If he wasn’t there by the time batting practice started he was going to lose his start to Lawson, and that was the last thing he would let happen.

“Hey hottie.”

He jerked up in surprise and nearly tipped his chair over backwards. “Is Ginny there,” he asked, impressed with his ability to sound casual when his heart was pounding from his near death experience.

Cara paused, like his greeting surprised her. “Well hello to you, too. I was hoping to at least get a hi before you used me to get to my friend. A compliment to butter me up wouldn’t hurt either. You know, ‘wow you sound sexy’ or ‘you have a nice ass’, that type of thing.”

Livan snorted. “You have a great ass and you know it. I don’t need to tell you that.”

Her laugh brought a smile to his face. “Do you feel better now? Properly greeted?”

“And buttered up with fake praise,” she agreed.

Livan’s smile vanished. “Fake praise? You think I don’t like your ass? Exactly what..,” he began, his tone becoming harsh.

“Livan! I believe you love my ass,” she interrupted. “Geez, what the hell just happened?”

Livan shook his head, surprised at his own behavior. He never lost his cool with a woman. Well, rarely lost his cool. Damn it, this is what worrying about someone other than himself did; it made him crazy. “I’m not using you to get to Ginny,” he muttered, trying to cover his rising embarrassment. “I’m using Ginny to get to you. Except I can’t get her to pick up her phone! So where is she?”

“We’re about an hour out from San Diego. And yes, I’m on a cell phone in a plane because people that are flying in personal jets can do stuff like that.”

“Let me talk to her.” He didn’t even attempt to be polite. It was a demand, pure and simple.

“No. She’s finally sleeping and she needs it. It was a wild trip and she’s a bit of a mess right now,” Cara told him.

Abruptly Livan’s heart started pounding. “A mess how?”

Cara was silent for a moment. “She’s upset about something, really upset, but she won’t tell me why. When I ask, she tells me she can’t talk about it. What I do know is she blocked Mike Lawson’s number.”

“She did what?” Livan was shocked. Lawson had always been her person, the one that she trusted above everyone else. Even after the whole drama with the media, he never once doubted the role of Mike Lawson in her life. He considered Ginny his closest, well only, friend on the team and knew she considered him a friend, too. But he also knew without a shadow of a doubt that if it came down to him or Mike, he would lose every time. So for her to actually block Lawson’s calls? It was a bad sign.

“I know,” Cara agreed. “She was on a tear when she got back from her meeting with the front office, and she didn’t slow down until this morning.”

Livan glanced up at the clock on the wall and cursed. “I have thirty seconds before I have to be on the field. What else do I need to know?”

“I didn’t think she partied that hard, but either she has a low tolerance for alcohol or she did some partying without me because she’s a hurting girl. On the upside, she fell asleep the minute we took off and she hasn’t moved the entire flight. Hopefully she’ll be more herself when she wakes up because she was pretty miserable this morning.”

“Shit, I have to go. Text me when you’re back to the hotel,” Livan said, grabbing his batting gloves from his locker and moving towards the tunnel. “And Cara?”

“Yeah?”

“Take a nap when you get back. You’re going to need it to keep up with me tonight.”

He jammed his phone into his back pocket and trotted out onto the field just before the pitching coach took the mound to begin batting practice. He calmly walked across the field to take his place behind the batting screen. He waited until Hinkley began swinging before he said anything.

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t kick your ass right now for whatever you did to Ginny,” he told the man next to him. He kept his eyes on the field and his voice quiet to avoid drawing attention from the press. He didn’t give a good goddamn about his teammates hearing his words but they last thing anyone needed was a fight between the Padres catchers caught on film.

From the corner of his eye he watched Lawson’s jaw clench. “What are you talking about,” the older man bit out.

Livan’s hands curled into fists but he held onto enough self control that he could keep his eyes on the field and his voice low. “I know that Ginny is upset. I also know that you did something bad enough that Ginny blocked your number. I want to know exactly what you did to make her do that. Now.”

Mike turned towards him with a suddenness that caught Livan off guard. “How do you know Ginny is upset? Have you talked to her?”

“Not yet, but I will as soon as she wakes up,” Livan responded. The implication was clear. Whatever Ginny told him was going to decide if he beat the crap out of the older man.

 

*****************************

“So how are two of the Padres’ least favorite people doing,” Blip asked, wedging his way between Livan and Mike and interrupting what looked like an explosion waiting to happen.

Lawson just raised an eyebrow at the man, but Livan nearly snarled, “Not now, Sanders”.

The men paused to watch Salvi settle in for his turn at the plate. As soon as Salvi’s bat hit the ball, Blip continued. “Who was the last one to talk to Ginny?”

The men sat in silence, each not wanting to answer for their own reasons. Blip was sure it wasn’t him and he didn’t want to give the catchers an excuse not to talk because he was blabbing. Livan had no intention of telling either man anything, including his phone call with Cara. He didn’t know if Ginny would want anyone else to know about his conversation with her friend, and he sure as hell wasn’t giving any information about her to Lawson.

But Mike kept his mouth closed for a different reason. It was fear. Fear that he had seriously screwed up the only good thing in his life, which was Padres baseball. His captaincy was on shaky ground with several team members already, and the man he considered his best friend still hadn’t forgiven him for waiving his no-trade clause. The last thing he needed to do was have them find out that he played some sort of role in Baker going off the deep end.

He swallowed hard. And that’s what scared him the most. That he might have been the one to push his rookie over the edge. He didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, scared that he would end up confessing the entire thing if he even opened his mouth. Their argument in the clubhouse about her not trusting him as the captain had definitely strained things between them, but not enough that she hadn’t tried to come to him her the day she ran off to party in Miami. He was nearly nauseous with the knowledge that he very well might have made things so much worse for her. For him. For... well, whatever the hell they were.

The silence stretched among the men. Salvi hit another three home runs before Livan spoke. “Why am I one of the least favorite Padres? It should be Lawson and a couple of the September rookies. Two of the relievers have an ERA over seven, and if that’s not a reason for you to dislike them, then there’s something wrong with you,” he said.

Blip shook his head in the same way he did when one of his twins did something so stupid it was mind-boggling. He could see Mike glaring at Livan, but the Cuban just looked back at them, not caring a damn bit about what they thought.

A whoosh of air brought all eyes back to the batter’s box. Salvi dropped to his knees, the bat falling from his fingers as his other arm curled protectively around his ribs. The big man didn’t curse or groan or say a word, just knelt as if frozen to the dirt.

Mike was around the screen before anyone else even reacted, squatting down so he was eye to eye with the first baseman. “What’s wrong,” he asked, even as he motioned Melky towards the dugout, hoping the guy understood he needed to get Ed.

“Ribs,” Salvi ground out, and Mike understood why the big man didn’t say more. If he opened his mouth, Salvi wasn’t sure that some sign of pain wouldn’t escape and in a sport where tradition demanded you never rubbed an injury, even one sustained by 100 mph fastball to the hand, he wasn’t willing to risk it.

“Do you want help up,” Mike asked, keeping his voice low.

Instead of answering, the blond man got to his feet with what looked like a Herculean effort. He shuffled towards the dugout bent forward and holding his ribs, but proudly going on his own power. Ed came tearing up the dugout steps to stand, arms akimbo, near the on deck circle. Everyone knew Ed’s opinions about “stupid baseball traditions made by stupid dead men”, but Ed did his best to adhere to the code as long as there was no danger in doing so. However, Mike had seen Ed threaten to drag a player off the field by an ear if he didn’t get his ass into the clubhouse for X-rays and there wasn’t a player on the Padres that didn’t believe he would do it.

Mike followed the two men into the clubhouse, but headed straight to Al’s office. He gave a perfunctory knock on the door frame and walked in the room. “Skip, we’ve got a problem.”

Al just looked at him. “Another one? I haven’t even solved the first three that walked in my door at eight this morning.”

Mike cracked a smile at that. “Salvi just went down holding his ribs. He’s with Ed right now.”

Al stood with a sigh. “Two games left, and the poor bastard had to hurt himself.”

“He’ll have the whole off season to heal,” Mike pointed out as the left the office.

“Mike, as a father let me tell you about an off-season if you’ve got kids. It’s like baseball season, but louder and stickier. Salvi isn’t going to find peace and quiet for the next four months.”

“His poor wife. Now she’ll have four kids, and Salvi will be the most demanding of them all. I’ll send her a gift card for a full day at the spa and babysitters for the kids. Al, I’ll need you to babysit Salvi,” Mike responded, happy to deflect away from flash of pain that Al’s talk of kids caused him.

“And I need you to grab your mitt and go warm-up. You’re on first tonight,” Al said before vanishing into the medical rooms.

Mike dutifully trudged back to his locker and rummaged through his gear for his first baseman’s mitt. He looked back at the field in consideration before reluctantly turning away. If he was going to play tonight, he needed to meet with Ed immediately to get started on all the therapies and stretching he needed to be able to move his aching joints.

Blip and Livan could wait and, unfortunately, Ginny would have to wait, too. His team needed him and he was done with disappointing people. He wouldn’t let them down again.

*****************************

 

Cara sprawled bonelessly across the bed, her head hanging over the side as she struggled to catch her breath. She could hear Livan breathing heavily somewhere behind her on the bed and as soon as she could move, she’d make sure to gloat about it.

“You’re out of shape,” she said when she finally controlled her breathing.

A smack to her ass was his response. Cara rolled over and sat up to glare at him to no avail. Livan had a arm covering his eyes but his smile was clearly visible. She tried to hold in her humor, she really did, because he deserved a little humility. So she smacked the side of his perfect ass in retaliation. But because it was Livan, he didn’t jump or act surprised. He just lifted his arm up enough to see her and grinned.

“Be careful, I might like that kind of stuff and there’s no way you can keep up with me again.”

Cara laughed, unable to stop herself. “Please. You’re still lying there gasping and I’m up and ready to play.”

Livan just raised an eyebrow, in no way challenged by her teasing. “Well, I have been doing all the hard work. Looks like it’s your turn to carry the load.”

“Oh you poor baby, it’s so hard to last more than ten minutes. You’re right, I’m cruel to make you actually do anything.”

He had her pinned on her back with her arms caught above her head before she could react. Livan peered down at her, his grin full of trouble. “Ten minutes, my ass. You have a smart mouth on you, woman. Be careful or I might have to do something about it.”

She laughed again, absurdly enjoying his warped sense of humor.  She half-heartedly struggled to get her hands free, but Livan held them firm against the mattress. “You like my smart mouth,” she challenged him.

His eyes drifted towards her lips. “Yeah, I do.”

He abruptly pushed off the bed and padded towards the kitchenette, giving Cara an incredible view of his amazing ass. Really, the guy was perfection. She reluctantly rolled out of bed and started gathering her clothing from the trail that lead from the bed to the front door.

“Where are you going,” Livan asked in idle curiosity, watching her struggle to put on her skinny jeans while balancing on one foot. Cara made the mistake of looking up at him leaning against the wall drinking from his beer bottle, and immediately lost her balance.

“I’m going to check on Ginny,” Cara told him, as if she wasn’t face first in the carpet and her bare ass up in the air.

“Why? What’s wrong with Ginny?” The lazy humor was gone from Livan’s voice. He leaned down and lifted her to her feet with a casual strength that was unnerving. When she met his eyes, she saw a different Livan from the one she knew. The one she knew was a shameless playboy, arrogant, self-centered, and yet charming enough to make you forget about his faults. This Livan was intense, focused on getting the information he wanted, not with smiles and flirting, but with demand and force of personality alone.

“She’s sick. Ginny swears she feels better than this morning, but she doesn’t look better. If anything she looks worse.”

“Is it a hangover from 3 days of partying?”

“Maybe. Sure, some of it could be, but she’s exhausted. She was going to bed when I came down to see you.”

“So?”

Cara peered behind the sofa, trying to find her bra. “I know her body hurts. She’s taking ibuprofen like it’s candy. She said it was just a headache, but she’s moving like she’s 80 years old. I think she’s getting muscle cramps because she keeps rubbing her hands and arm while she sleeps.”

Livan dangled her bra in front of her. Cara grabbed it from his hand and wiggled into it. “How do you know what she does when she sleeps,” Livan asked.

Cara made a face at him before she pulled her shirt over her head, not worrying about her hair. There was no saving her make-up and wrinkled clothing, so her walk-of-shame might as well be complete with wild hair, too. “You are such a guy. Get the two girl/one guy fantasy out of your head. Ginny and I shared a room, you sicko, and when she fell asleep on the plane I checked on her a couple of times.”

“Hmmm. Well, if you’d rather go watch Ginny sleep instead of staying here and finishing up that box of condoms you brought, go ahead. You’re crazy, but whatever works for you.”

Cara just raised an eyebrow. “How about you just go ahead and take a nap. You’ll need it to keep up with me.”

She had the door open before Livan wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. He pushed the door shut and Cara leaned into him, ready to postpone her exit.

“Is she hungover from alcohol or could it be something heavier? Something that might cause a failed drug test.”

She wouldn’t have answered him, she would have kept her worry to herself, but his voice was as concerned as she had ever heard from him. “I don’t know,” she confessed. It was easier to say the words when she didn’t have to see his reaction. “She wasn’t out of my eyesight very much, but it only takes a minute.”

“Could someone have put something in her drink?”

“No,” she said with absolute confidence.

“How do you know? There are always assholes willing to do that,” Livan countered.

“Because the only person more cautious than me about that is Ginny. She personally got her own drinks from the bar and she had her hand over the top the entire time. She didn’t try to be subtle. When Drake noticed, he sent out an assistant to get a cover to fit over her glass. Of course it was a work of art, absolutely beautiful and undoubtedly expensive.” A sudden smile appeared as she remembered the moment. “He got me one, too. He’s a sweetheart.”

A sharp pain on the side of her neck made her jump. “Did you just _bite_ me?”

“When you’re in my arms, you don’t talk about any other man except me. Got it? And you know nothing about men if you think any guy is a sweetheart.” Livan’s voice was nearly a growl and, because she obviously had something wrong with her, she found it sexy as hell.

She wiggled free and opened the door. She looked over her shoulder and told him, “It’s your nap time Livan,” before sauntering down the hallway. His laughter followed her and had her smiling all the way to Ginny’s door.

Cara took care to open the door as quietly as possible, unsure if Ginny was awake. A quick glance in the room showed it dark except for a faint light from the bedroom area. She carefully closed the door with a soft click and kicked off her shoes before padding into the kitchenette to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

She tiptoed towards the bedroom, not turning on the light to avoid waking her friend even as she tried to remember where the coffee table was so she wouldn’t bruise her shins again. She thought she had cleared it, but her ankle caught on something and sent her stumbling forward to land on her hands and knees. With a curse, she pulled out her cell phone and turned on her flashlight app to illuminate the object of her downfall.

Cara scrambled to her feet and frantically slapped at the living room wall until she found the light switch.

“Oh my God, Ginny?”

 

****************

A pounding on his door brought Livan bolt up in bed. He seriously considered ignoring it, but rethought the decision when the person actually started pounding harder. The last thing he wanted to deal with was hotel security showing up accusing him of loud parties again. He managed to pull on a pair of boxers as he crossed the room and looked out the peephole. He unlatched the locks and pulled the door open.

“You don’t need to pound. You know I’ll let you in any time,” he told Cara, casually leaning a bare shoulder against the door frame. “I do like the desperate look on you, though. It’s hot.”

Cara grabbed his wrist and yanked hard enough he actually stumbled into the hallway. Only quick reflexes kept him from being locked out of his room in just boxers.

“What the hell,” he asked, wincing when the door slammed shut on his fingers.

Cara pulled hard on his wrist, trying to pull him down the hallway. “Something’s wrong with Ginny.”

Livan pulled his arm back hard enough that Cara fell against his chest. He stumbled back into his room, dragging her with him. “What do you mean something is wrong,” he demanded, letting the door slam shut behind them. To hell with the neighbors. If the hotel was stupid enough to room people on his floor, they could just deal with any noise complaints.

Cara snatched up his jeans from where she had stripped them off of him several hours ago. She slapped them against his chest and scrabbled behind the chair to find his shirt. “I just found her unconscious on the floor in her room. I thought she was just sleeping, or maybe even drunk, but I can’t get her to wake up. I think something’s really wrong.”

Whatever security officer was watching the cameras in the stairwells got to witness the unprecedented sight of Livan Duarte, catcher extraordinaire, sprinting up two flights of stairs in nothing more than boxers, his jeans clutched forgotten in his fist, Cara hot on his heels. As soon as Cara unlocked the door, he shoved his way in the room only to freeze as he saw the entire sitting area.

Ginny lay on the carpeted floor between the sofa and coffee table, curled up on her side with her chin nearly touched her knees. As bad as that was, it wasn’t as awful as the sight of what was around her. The table and floor were littered with a mess of items. A half empty bottle of whisky lay tipped on its side, the spilled alcohol pooling in a dark stain on the carpet. The hotel’s cordless phone was in the doorway to her bedroom as if she had thrown it, but her cell phone was still resting on the table next to several shot glasses. And in the midst of the flotsam were pills and a white powder that was scattered across the table and onto the floor surrounding Ginny.

“ _Mami, q_ _ué has hecho_ ,” he breathed out as he dropped to his knees next to her. Even though he could see that she was breathing, he felt her wrist for the reassuring beat of her pulse before he rolled her onto her back.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Cara said as she dropped to her knees next to him.

“Why didn’t you call for an ambulance?”

“Because of that.” Livan looked up to see her pointing at the table. “I don’t know what those pills and powders are. If the paramedics come, they’ll call the police.”

Livan rocked back on his heels and considered. “It would cost her all the endorsements.”

Cara held her hand against Ginny’s forehead. “She’s burning up. And it would cost Ginny her career.” At Livan’s dismissive noise, she continued. “Come on, other players take a lot of heat from MLB and the press for getting busted for drugs. What do you think will happen to their golden girl? They’ll kick her out of baseball so fast her head will spin.”

Livan studied the carpet while his mind frantically whirled. For the first time in a very long time, he was racked with indecision. What was the best thing to do for Ginny? He didn’t know how the contracts in MLB worked. Would he be risking her career by calling the ambulance but risking her life by not calling them?

He abruptly stood up and shook his pants until his cell phone fell from a pocket. “Keep trying to wake her,” he ordered Cara. It was an indicator of how scared he was for Ginny that he didn’t hesitate to dial.

“Lawson, we’ve got a problem.”

*********************************************

 

It was only by the grace of the baseball gods that Mike wasn’t leading a dozen patrol cars on a high speed chase by the time he entered the Omni’s parking garage, tires screeching and engine roaring as he downshifted harder than necessary. It took all of his self-control to stroll casually to the elevator when what he really wanted to do was sprint there, knocking over anyone stupid enough to get in his way. But he maintained the image of calm for the few people in the lobby, keeping his eyes on his phone as he texted of his eminent arrival.

The door opened before he knocked and he brushed past Cara and in two steps entered the living room. He sucked in a breath, fear riding him hard as he looked at Ginny, his rookie, lying on the floor looking half dead. For a moment, all he could hear was his pulse pounding in his ears, his thoughts so jumbled that he was momentarily paralyzed.

“I found her like this about fifteen minutes ago,” Cara told him. Her words shook the numbness from his body. He dropped to his knees and looked her over.

“Any idea what’s wrong?” He could feel the heat radiating from her body before he even touched her skin. Sure enough, her face was hot, far too hot to be healthy. He slid his hand down her arm to reach for her wrist, her pulse fluttering abnormally fast under his fingers.

“No,” Livan answered. “Cara says Ginny wasn’t like this a few hours ago.”

“Have you tried to get her to wake up?”

Normally Livan wouldn’t have passed up the chance to mock Lawson for the ridiculous question, but for the near future their focus was on Ginny and that meant he would play nice. “Of course we tried. Nothing worked.”

Lawson studied Ginny before scanning the room. A quick glance at the table made the decision easy. He pulled out his cell phone and paced away from the others. A quick text is all it took to arrange for a ride to the ER. His car wasn’t good for hauling an unconscious person, and Livan’s wasn’t any better. That left an ambulance or an Uber and he happened to know a guy that could be trusted.

He clicked on a number in his contacts and listened to the phone ring, confident that the phone would be answered, even at nearly 1 in the morning.

“Mike? What happened now?”

That brought a reluctant smile to Mike’s face. This had become something of a habit after nearly ten years as the Padres captain. “Oscar, call ahead to the ER and have the team doctors meet us there. Ginny is unconscious on the floor in her room and no one can wake her.”

“Call the ambulance and I’ll meet you in the ER.”

Mike grimaced, but it had to be said. “I’m going to bring her in myself. You don’t want to have any mandatory reporters up here. There are some things here that might cause problems if the wrong people see it. And Oscar?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful what you let them test her blood for.”

Oscar could read between the lines. “Shit,” he said conversationally. “Well, first I’ll worry about her health. Second, I’ll worry about MLB.”

Once again, Mike thanked his lucky stars to have a GM that had been a former player. Oscar hadn’t been an natural superstar, he’d had to fight and study and scrabble for everything he had. The guy was smart, but he also had a way of viewing the entire picture and making the right decision for a situation. Most GMs would be having a fit, worried more about protecting their main money-maker and the team image than her actual health.

“I’ll meet you there with the med staff,” Oscar said and, without further ado, hung up.

“How did he take it,” Livan asked.

Mike turned to find Livan dumping a handful of items in the trash. The guy was obviously trying to clean up anything that might raise suspicions. “He’s going to get the med staff to meet us in the ER. He’ll do what he can from there.”

“Did he say to call an ambulance?”

“I said we’d bring her in ourselves. I’ve already texted Marsallis to come over. The ER will let us go in the back entrance to keep things more contained.”

“It’s like her surgery, but in reverse. This time, we’re taking her back to the hospital.”

Mike knew Livan was trying to ease the worry and tension and he appreciated the effort. “Yeah, well, we need to not make this a habit for her.”

Both men moved to the living room and stared down at their pitcher. “Shit,” Livan whispered. “Do you really think she’ll be okay?”

Mike kept his eyes on Ginny, even as his ears tuned into Livan’s tone of voice. The man sounded vulnerable, and it made Mike hate him a little less to know that he genuinely cared for Ginny. “Yeah, she’ll be okay. She’s too mean to do anything else but come back better than ever.”

Livan smirked and whatever comradery Mike had felt towards him vanished. “No worries Lawson. If it takes mean to bounce back, you’ll live forever. And maybe then you’ll be able to catch up with my homerun numbers.”  

The only thing that saved Livan needing an ambulance of his own was Marsallis’s knock on the door.

The big man took in the situation in one look. "How are we going to do this," he asked, straight to the point.

Mike didn't hesitate. "Cara, you and Livan go out through the lobby. If there are any paps or autograph seekers, make sure they go to you."

"That's easy. They always come to me," Livan said with a shrug. 

"Don't be an ass," Cara told him, earning Mike's silent gratitude.

"Marsallis, you'll carry Ginny. I'll go first and run interference for you. You parked in the back delivery area?"

"Like I always do," he confirmed.

"Fine. Let's hope that we don't have to stop every floor and let people on and off the elevator."

"Hold on," Cara told the men. She rustled through her backpack stacked in the corner and triumphantly held up a key chain. "Use this."

All three men studied it. "What's special about that key ring? Does it have a sonic screwdriver or something," Marsallis finally asked.

Cara shook her head at the men. "You guys must lead very boring lives. This is a fireman's key. It'll let you bypass all of the floors between us and the docks."

Mike was impressed. "How did you get that," he asked.

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to," Cara told him with a wink.

Mike studied Baker, his rookie, for a moment before clearing his throat. "All right, you know what to do. Let's go get her the help she needs."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly apologize for taking so long to update this. Life keeps pulling me away from writing time, and as I have yet to win the lottery, I still have to adult. I'm also in the middle of four different Pitch stories, and sometimes those stories demanded to be told first and this story went silent on me.
> 
> Anyways. I hope you like it and rest assured, the last chapter will be out soon. And please leave me comments so I know if you love it, hate it, or anything in between.


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